Wild Animals of Italy: From Apennine Wolves to Marsican Bears

Italy’s wildlife at a glance

The Apennine wolf

The Italian or Apennine wolf (Canis lupus italicus) is a slim gray wolf about the size of a German shepherd; wolves weighed in the Italian Alps were mostly 28–34 kg (62–75 lb). It carries a mitochondrial DNA type found in no other living wolf population, a sign of thousands of years of isolation south of the Alps.

Persecution and poisoning pushed it to the edge. A 1973 census found only about 100 wolves scattered in the central and southern Apennines. Legal protection began in 1971, and by the late 1990s there were around 400–500 wolves along the whole Apennine chain. The 2020–2021 national survey coordinated by ISPRA estimated about 3,300 wolves in Italy, most of them along the Apennines and a fast-growing population in the Alps. Italian wolves walked into France in 1992 and later into Switzerland. Because of the legend of the she-wolf of Rome, the wolf is often called Italy’s unofficial national animal. Read more in our gray wolf profile and our guide to wolves in Europe.

The Marsican brown bear

The Marsican or Apennine brown bear is an isolated population of the Eurasian brown bear that has lived cut off in the central Apennines for centuries. Surveys point to probably 50–70 bears, most of them in and around the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, with a growing group in the Majella National Park. Males can top 230 kg (510 lb) in autumn, while females rarely exceed 140 kg (310 lb).

These bears are mostly vegetarian. In late summer they climb to high slopes to gorge on buckthorn berries, and they also eat grasses, roots, acorns, beechnuts, insects and carrion. They are known for a calm temperament, and the few bears that wander into villages at night are usually after fruit trees and beehives. Road traffic, poaching and the tiny number of breeding females are the main threats. The park’s symbol is a bear, and Pescasseroli, the park headquarters, is the base for visitors. Our brown bear profile covers the species as a whole.

In the Alps, a separate population of roughly 100 brown bears lives in Trentino, descended from ten bears brought from Slovenia between 1999 and 2002.

Alpine ibex of Gran Paradiso

Italy saved the Alpine ibex (Capra ibex). By the early 19th century, hunting had wiped it out everywhere except around Gran Paradiso in the western Alps, where fewer than 100 survived. Piedmont banned ibex hunting in 1821, and in 1856 King Victor Emmanuel II made the area a royal hunting reserve with its own guards. In 1922 the land became Gran Paradiso National Park, Italy’s first national park.

Every Alpine ibex alive today descends from that small herd, which supplied reintroductions across the Alps. By the late 2010s Italy had more than 16,000 ibex in about 67 colonies. Males have ridged horns up to about 1 m (3 ft) long and weigh 67–117 kg (148–258 lb), roughly three times as much as females. See our guide to animals of the Alps for more high-mountain wildlife.

Apennine chamois: back from about 50 animals

The Apennine or Abruzzo chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica ornata) is often called the most beautiful chamois in the world, thanks to its bold winter coat with large cream patches on the throat, neck and rump. Its hooked horns are longer than those of other chamois, sometimes over 30 cm (12 in).

Hunting brought it close to extinction. A 1913 law banned hunting it, the first law of its kind in Italy, and when the Abruzzo National Park was created in the early 1920s only about 50 chamois remained on the Camosciara massif. Protection and releases into the Majella, Gran Sasso and Monti Sibillini national parks and the Sirente-Velino regional park raised the total to an estimated 3,800 in 2024. The IUCN lists this subspecies as Vulnerable because it lives in so few places.

Crested porcupine and wild boar

The crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata) is the only porcupine in Europe and one of the world’s largest rodents, weighing 13–27 kg (29–60 lb). Its back and sides bristle with black-and-white quills up to about 35 cm (14 in) long, which it raises and rattles when threatened. It lives in burrows, comes out at night to eat roots, tubers, bark and fallen fruit, and can live more than 20 years in captivity. Fossils show porcupines lived in Italy in the late Pleistocene, but whether today’s animals are native survivors or were reintroduced by the Romans is still debated. In recent decades the species has spread north into Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto.

Wild boar are abundant across Italy, from Alpine valleys to the outskirts of Rome and Genoa, and their numbers have soared since the mid-20th century. Read our wild boar profile for their biology.

Birds: eagles, vultures and flamingos

Golden eagles nest on cliffs throughout the Alps and Apennines, hunting marmots, hares and young chamois. Bearded vultures released in the Alps since the 1980s now breed in parks such as Stelvio and Gran Paradiso, and Sardinia’s west coast near Bosa holds a native colony of griffon vultures that has been reinforced by releases.

Greater flamingos have become a common sight. They now breed regularly in Sardinia, Emilia-Romagna, Puglia and Sicily. The salt ponds of Molentargius, on the edge of Cagliari, host flamingos within view of the city, and the lagoons of Comacchio in the Po Delta and the salt pans of Margherita di Savoia in Puglia hold thousands more. Orbetello lagoon in Tuscany is another good spot.

Whales of the Pelagos Sanctuary

The Pelagos Sanctuary is an 87,500 km² (33,800 sq mi) marine protected area shared by Italy, France and Monaco and agreed in 1999. Its deep, food-rich waters between Liguria, Tuscany, Sardinia and Corsica are thought to be the main feeding ground for fin whales in the Mediterranean. Fin whales are the second-largest animals on Earth, and in the Northern Hemisphere they can reach about 20–22 m (66–72 ft). The Mediterranean population is listed as Endangered by the IUCN.

Boat trips from Genoa, Savona and Imperia also regularly meet striped dolphins, the most common dolphin offshore, along with bottlenose dolphins, Risso’s dolphins and sperm whales.

Where to see wildlife in Italy

• Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park: wolves, Marsican bears, Apennine chamois at the Camosciara and Val di Rose, red and roe deer.
• Majella and Gran Sasso national parks, Abruzzo: chamois at Campo Imperatore and on Majella’s high slopes, wolves and golden eagles.
• Gran Paradiso National Park, Piedmont and Aosta Valley: ibex, chamois, marmots and bearded vultures, best from June to October.
• Stelvio National Park, Lombardy and Trentino-South Tyrol: red deer during the autumn rut, ibex and bearded vultures.
• Po Delta, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto: flamingos, herons, egrets and huge numbers of waterbirds.
• Molentargius, Cagliari, Sardinia: flamingos at close range.
• Ligurian Sea: whale-watching trips from Liguria, mainly between May and September.

Watch wildlife from paths and viewpoints, especially in bear areas, never leave food out, and keep dogs on a lead in national parks.