The Marsican Brown Bear.

The Marsican Brown Bear (Ursus Arctos Marsicanus) originally lived in the entire central and southern Italy. 
This subspecies of brown bear weighs almost 100-150 kilos and when in upright position it reaches a height of nearly 1,80 meters. 

During the centuries it was ruthlessly hunted because there was the belief that it preyed the cattle grazing. Instead, this solitary and shy plantigrade has strictly nocturnal habits and a vegetarian diet for more than 90% (berries, roots, fruits, tubers) and only occasionally it eats small mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. 
Sometimes it eats carcasses of large herbivores that it finds in its territory (which is usually from 10 to 200 square kilometers, depending on the food available). 

Today, the poisonings, the traps and the hunt are severely forbidden but this bear is practically relegated only in the Abruzzo National Park with a population of about 40 specimens (in 1969 they were approximately 60). 

This is another proof of how the mankind adversely affects the environment that surrounds him, often without showing a modicum of respect to all the creatures with which he shares this world. 

(Thanks to Lorenzo S. for helping me writing this post)

Brown Bear: the situation in the Italian Alps.

In the Italian Alps, there are only 35 brown bears left. 
Reduced to the brink of extinction, the Brown Bear had almost disappeared at the beginning of the last century from the alpine zone, because of poaching and poisonings. 

Today bears are returning but in the Alps people are no more accustomed to their presence and they have lost the precautions for peaceful coexistence. 
Garbage cans, hives and hen houses are devoid of protections and it is clear that they are irresistible temptations for bears. 

Bears are increasingly forced into a fragmented, anthropized habitat and this inevitably leads them more and more in contact with men. 
Damage caused by these animals provokes strong resentment in the local population and this can be eliminated only by an adequate forest policy and by a greater ecological awareness.