'Furaco' (photo, left), a male brown bear from Cabárceno park in Cantabria has arrived at the Proaza bear reserve in Asturias to mate with 'Paca' and 'Tola' (photo, right), who are sisters. Discouragingly, the ageing siblings reportedly showed little or no interest in the new arrival on their first day together last Monday though the mating season is about to begin.

Cantabria president Miguel Ángel Revilla joked yesterday that he has no doubt that 'Furaco' will leave Asturias "with his head held high" and is sure that he "will not fail."

A spokesman for the Asturias Bear Foundation announced that visitors to the Proaza bear enclosure will be accompanied by guides during the following weeks until the end of the mating season.

Both 'Paca' and 'Tola' are nearly twenty years old now and getting a bit long in the tooth for mating. The problem of how this should be undertaken has been vexing their keepers for years. Attempts were made to mate them with North American black bears using artificial insemination some years ago, but these were unsuccessful. The main problem with this procedure is gathering and storing the male bear's semen, which only remains fertile during the spring. Partial success has been achieved elsewhere with a method known as "electroejaculation."