Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise park: around 50 bears

The Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, founded privately in 1922 and set up by law in 1923, covers around 50,500¹ hectares and holds the largest group of bears in Italy: around 50 Marsican brown bears, in a range of 45 to 69.

Around 50 bears, and no year on the count

The park authority estimates the Marsican brown bear population at around 50 animals, within a range of 45 to 69.

It's the most numerous bear group in Italy, and it lives almost entirely inside this park, spreading slowly into the land around it.

The authority cites recent studies but gives no year for the estimate, so read the number as the park's current figure rather than a dated census. A genetic monitoring program funded under Italy's recovery plan was under way in 2026 and should produce a newer one.

What a count of 50 means on the trail

Around 50 animals is a population small enough that every avoidable disturbance counts, and you are one of the variables.

The park's own rules for visitors, from the areas with capped access to how close you may get to wildlife, are not in the facts verified here. Read them on the park authority's site or at a visitor center before you walk, and follow them to the letter.

A sighting isn't something the park sells, and nothing on this page promises one. For how this bear differs from the one in the Alps, see the Marsican bear and the Trentino bear.

1922, 1923 and a name that grew

The park began in 1922 as a private initiative and became law in 1923 with Royal Decree-Law 257¹.

It was the Abruzzo National Park until 2001, when the name took in Lazio and Molise to match the ground it already covered. How it began is told in 1922, the first two parks.

24 comuni, three regions, one headquarters

The park covers 24 comuni, 12 in Abruzzo, 7 in Lazio and 5 in Molise, with its headquarters in Pescasseroli.

• Park area: 50,500 hectares
• Contiguous area around it: 77,500 hectares
• Integral reserves: 4,400 hectares
• Forest: 30,000 hectares
• Park rangers: 32

The highest summits are Monte Petroso at 2,249¹ meters, Monte Marsicano at 2,245¹ and Monte Meta at 2,242¹. Lake Barrea is a wetland protected under the Ramsar convention.

Beech forests on the UNESCO list

Val Cervara, inside the park, is where its oldest tree grows, a beech estimated at 560¹ years, and it's also one of 13 Italian components of the UNESCO ancient beech forests.

The park's other record tree is a black pine at Villetta Barrea, estimated at 535¹ years. The beech listing spans seven Italian regions, Abruzzo and Lazio among them, but none of its components falls in the park's Molise side.

That detail leaves Molise one of only two Italian regions with no World Heritage site at all, even though part of this park lies within it. More in the two regions with no UNESCO site and Abruzzo.

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