Two bears, two completely different stories

The Marsican bear is a native Apennine subspecies of about 50 animals living almost entirely inside the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise park, while Trentino's bears descend from 10 brought in from Slovenia between 1999 and 2002 and numbered about 98 by 2023: the same animal, one population protected where it survived and one rebuilt from outside.

Two bear populations side by side

Same species, opposite starting points: 10 founders released on one side, a population that was never lost on the other. One population is a remnant being guarded, the other is a founder group that grew.

The Marsican bear never left

The Marsican bear, Ursus arctos marsicanus, is a subspecies of brown bear that lives in the central Apennines, and the park authority estimates it at about 50 animals, with a range of 45 to 69. It's the largest bear population in Italy and it lives almost entirely inside the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise national park.

Nobody brought these bears in. The park itself began as a private initiative in 1922 and was established by law in 1923, and its forests cover about 30,000 ha³ of the park's 50,500³. Today the bear population is slowly spreading into the areas around the park.

Trentino's bears were brought back

The brown bear returned to Trentino through Life Ursus, a project started in 1996. Between 1999 and 2002, ten bears from Slovenia were released in the Adamello Brenta nature park, and the population grew from there.

That's the fundamental difference. Abruzzo protects an animal that survived there; Trentino decided to put an animal back, and chose a population from outside Italy to do it.

One population holds, the other has grown

Trentino's estimate went from 60 to 78 bears in 2018 to about 98 in 2023, from ten founders. The Marsican figure, about 50, has no year attached to it on the park's own page.

The two numbers aren't directly comparable, because one comes with a date and a method published every spring and the other doesn't. What they do show is two different trajectories: a reintroduced population that grew from ten founders to about 98, and a native one that the park still counts at about 50.

The parks around them are very different places

The Abruzzo park covers about 50,500 ha³ with 77,500 ha³ of contiguous area and 24 municipalities in three regions, and is mostly forest. The Adamello Brenta nature park, established in 1967, is the largest protected area in Trentino at 62,051 ha⁴, with over 80 lakes, the Adamello glacier and the Brenta Dolomites, and it is a UNESCO Global Geopark.

It is also lived in: about 49,000⁴ people live in the area of Adamello Brenta, across 21 valleys. The bears of Trentino share their range with a sizable resident population, which is a different kind of coexistence from the Abruzzo park's.

Two numbers that don't agree

The Abruzzo park authority's page still describes the Trentino population as about 20 bears reintroduced from Slovenia. That's well below the province of Trento's own estimate of about 98 in 2023.

We use each authority's figure for its own bears: about 50 for the Marsican bear from the Abruzzo park, about 98 for Trentino from the province. When a genetic monitoring program under way in 2026 publishes a new Marsican count, this page will change.

Where each story takes you

The native bear's country is the Abruzzo park, 50,500 ha³ of it: read the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise park and hiking in Abruzzo before you go; the park's other 1922 twin is compared on Gran Paradiso or the Abruzzo park.

If it's the reintroduction that interests you, the Adamello Brenta park and the Brenta group are on Trentino. Neither page promises you a sighting, and neither will we.

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