Marsican Brown Bear (Ursus arctos marsicanus) (captive)
The Marsican Brown Bear (Ursus arctos marsicanus) is also known as the Apennine Brown Bear. It is an isolated Brown Bear population that inhabits the mountains of the central Apennines in Italy, mainly of Abruzzo but also of Lazio and Molise. Its miraculous survival so far is due to the fact that the core population lives in the heart of the Abruzzo National Park (which is also known as PNALM - Parco Nazionale d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise). To date (25th July 2013) it is estimated that between 35 and 50 bears still survive. But this small population of subspecies of Brown Bear is extremely endangered as it is cut off from the rest of the Apennines, and any young males that sometimes stray from the protected areas to seek new territories tend to be run over, killed or poisoned. In any case the probability of an adult male and female leaving the protected area and setting up an alternative population elsewhere is almost zero. The bears have a very low reproductive rate, as they have no natural predators. In recent years several bears have been found dead from poisoned baits that are set out within the Abruzzo National Park's territories to protect sheep and cattle from their attacks (and above all from wolf predation). If no decisive steps are taken to prevent this criminal behaviour, the future of the Marsican Brown Bear looks very dim. This bear was one of the individuals that became "problematic" as it approached towns in search of food, and was not very afraid of humans, and so it was caught and kept in captivity.
Size: 4672px × 3104px
Location: Abruzzo National Park, central Italy (captive animal)
Photo credit: © Paul Harris / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: abruzzo, apennines, bait, bear, brown, critical, endangered, extinction, hunter, italy, poacher, poaching, poison, population, rare, snares, subspecies, traps
