Pontresina & the ibex
The ibex is the king of the mountains – strong and proud. It is the symbol of both the Alps and Pontresina. This was not always the case, however. Towards the end of the 18th century, this noble animal gradually disappeared in the Alpine regions of Europe. Ibex were only present in the Gran Paradiso hunting grounds of the Italian king in the Aosta valley. Humans had eradicated the ibex.In 1906, the first ibex returned to Switzerland again when poachers commissioned by distinguished Swiss public figures brought illegally caught kids from the Aosta valley to St. Gallen. This was the beginning of what was probably the most successful re-introduction of a threatened type of mammal to its natural habitat. In 2006, exactly 100 years after the resettlement, ibex were captured in Pontresina and other towns, to ‘give them back’ to the Italians. The gift was intended as symbolic atonement for the fact that Switzerland – with the support of the federal authorities – illegally imported ibex from Italy over a period of fifty years.