In Italy today, two different populations of this carnivore exist, both of which, however, eat very little meat and largely prefer vegetarian diets. Looking back, we see even more successive bear populations, with species spanning much of the Pleistocene, starting from its earliest part (Late Villafranchian, 1.8 million years ago).
The fossil deposits of Tuscany (Valdarno), dating back to that distant period, yield the Etruscan bear (Ursus etruscus), a species clearly assigned to the brown bear group, from which the other two forms characterising the Italian glacial period later derived: the Deninger bear (Ursus deningeri) and the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus). The former is the oldest, typical of the faunas of the Galerian period (which began 1.1 million years ago), but the arrival of an interglacial period with a warmer climate led to its disappearance. This gradually occurred with the evolution of forms adapting to new environmental conditions, such as U. spelaeus deningeroides, now close to the cave bear, typical of the subsequent Aurelian period (118,000 years ago). Spelaeus and Deningeri are considered by many to be closely related, seen as a “chronospecies,” meaning variations within the same species over time due to climate changes and dietary habits. Deningeri was more carnivorous, giving way during a warmer interglacial period to Spelaeus, which had a predominantly herbivorous diet, as suggested by differences in their dentition: Spelaeus has two or three fewer pairs of premolars, resulting in a wide gap (diastema) behind the canines, a typical trait of herbivorous mammals.
According to the most recent dating data, the extinction of Speleus occurred around 25,000 years ago, during one of the coldest periods of the last glacial period. The harsher climate led to a decline in edible, energy-producing plants and an increase in the hibernation period. In caves, bears died during hibernation because they had not accumulated sufficient fat reserves, as well as due to predation by wolves, hyenas, cave lions, and even humans, who also competed for the caves needed by the bears. Lastly, the decline in their population, reduced reproductive capacity, and the arrival of current species contributed to this extinction.
The cave bear was the largest known bear species, with specimens reaching an estimated weight of one ton and a height of 2.5 meters when standing on their hind legs. It was described as a new species by Johann C. Rosenmüller, an anatomist at the University of Leipzig, who in 1794 named it spelaeus because its remains were always found in caves. In Italy, the most famous site is the Pocala Cave (Duino Aurisina, Trieste), which, during various excavation campaigns, yielded 294 specimens and no fewer than 64 complete skulls.
The dawn of the Holocene approaches.
The faunas of the early Quaternary were gradually becoming extinct, and a new set of species was replacing the cave dweller, the spotted hyena, the woolly rhinoceros, the panther, and the cave lion (one of the last to disappear). Among these new arrivals, largely originating in the high latitudes of Asia, a new species of bear appeared on this side of the Alps: the modern brown bear (Ursus arctos). It belonged to the same phyletic root as its predecessors but had no direct connection to their Italian populations. It was the product of new climatic conditions, changing vegetation, and the biogeographic complex that followed the tail of the glacial successions and the end of the Pleistocene (11,700 years ago), thus entering the current Holocene period, often referred to as the Anthropocene due to our species’ responsibility for the decline of planet Earth’s ecological quality.
In our country, the brown bear was once present throughout the entire Alpine and Apennine chains, possibly as far south as Puglia, with a homogeneous population. Millennia of persecution that decimated it have led to the current situation of two distinct populations no longer in contact with each other. One in Trentino, a remnant of the Alpine population, numbered no more than a dozen individuals belonging to the form typical of the rest of Europe (Ursus arctos arctos) at the end of the 20th century. The other population is that of the Marsican brown bear (U. arctos marsicanus), recognised as a separate entity by G. Altobello in 1921. The last remaining population is present in the Abruzzo National Park, which adopted it as its coat of arms, as well as on the Maiella, where some specimens have been relocated. The Marsican brown bear is most likely the result of peripatric subspecific differentiation, which occurs when a small number of individuals become geographically isolated from the range of their original species. This event likely occurred 400–600 years ago. Its location is, in fact, at the southern edge of the European brown bear’s distribution. Smaller in size than the Alpine and European bears, its population is estimated at around 60 individuals, stable for several decades—a sign, unfortunately, of a problematic state of conservation, sufficient to maintain its size but not its numerical growth.
The Alpine population is recovering thanks to EU reintroduction programs implemented between 1999 and 2002. The population is now steadily growing, with an estimated number of over one hundred individuals. Furthermore, the natural expansion of Dinaric-Balkan brown bears in the Trentino and Julian Alps, and the Adamello-Brenta range, is noteworthy.
The densely forested mountain plains, in a landscape continuum extending from the Alps to the Apennines, were their preferred habitat, of which they were an essential ecological component. An iconic faunal element, but also a coveted prey to be measured against: an ancient history that also involved the last specimens of cave bears and had never been interrupted since the Paleolithic. It was already the Neanderthals and then the sapiens hunter-gatherers who, not yet engaged in domestication, breeding, and agriculture, survived by relying on what nature could offer them.
Man, the hunt, the protection that came too late: we risked losing them.
Some rock carvings in Haute-Garonne (France) suggest that the bear already played a key role in the life and worship of Paleolithic man. Ancient runic writings in Finland indicate that bears were worshipped as deities by ancient Nordic civilizations, and similar beliefs were held by the peoples of northern Siberia and the Japanese Ainu tribes as late as the 18th century.
Unfortunately, hundreds of bears were killed in Imperial Rome in gladiatorial combat with dogs or lions. As a gift of allegiance and loyalty, they were prized by nobles, and according to 19th-century chronicles, the Duke of Modena may have received the last bears captured on Mount Orsaro (Tuscan-Emilian Apennines).
The first records of bear hunting in the Middle Ages come from a valuable French text from 1388 written by Gaston III, Count of Foix. At the time, hunts were a privilege of nobles, conducted on their feudal estates. Bears were hunted in driven hunts using mastiffs crossed with Great Danes and other hunting breeds. Once the bear was stopped by the dogs and surrounded by crossbow-wielding beaters, the knight would intervene and kill it with a long spear, but not with his sword, to keep his distance. The text also describes a villain chase, that is, non-noble hunting with snap traps, practised by poachers and commoners for the sale of meat and precious fur.
Precise documentary evidence exists for Tuscany (Garfagnana and the Pistoia valleys). Regarding Garfagnana, there is mention of bear hunting in that valley in the 16th century; similarly, some 14th-century Lucca edicts testify that bear meat was routinely sold in butcher shops. For Sambuca Pistoiese, we have references to the 1291 statute regarding its presence.
With the advent of firearms, hunting increased dramatically, and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, bear populations faced their final decline, experiencing numerous local extinctions. This means that throughout history, the bear has never had an easy life. In fact, Professor Cornalia, introducing the brown bear in his report on Italian Mammals (1873), wrote: “The incessant hunting prevents it from growing old, and individuals at the peak of their development are rarely captured… In Italy, it is becoming rarer every day… With the destruction of the forests and the bounties placed on its head, it is gradually disappearing everywhere.” A prediction that certainly proved accurate!
In the central Alps, the last confirmed cull dates back to 1967, in Alto Adige in 1930, on Monte Baldo in Trentino in 1896, in the Rhaetian Alps in 1930, and in the Dolomites in 1906…
When the concept of conservation was not yet established, capturing bears was a common method for eliminating predators or an unwanted presence in a territory. The post-war culls were not acts of senseless poaching but hunting events that did not violate any laws; in fact, they were recorded by the provincial hunting offices of the time.
Only with the International Bern Convention of September 19, 1979, for the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, were all Ursidae declared “strictly protected.” However, it was only with the EU Habitats Directive (1992/43/EEC) and the subsequent National Law of February 11, 1992/157 that an effective hunting ban for the Alpine and Marsican brown bears was established in our country.
The end of the problems? Not quite!
It wasn’t the end of a war, however. A few years have passed since a numerical recovery, thanks to reintroductions and natural arrivals from Slovenian populations, reversed a trend that would have led to the bear’s extinction in the Alps. But once again, we’re faced with calls for culling and reconsiderations about the appropriateness of its presence. In mountains seasonally invaded by winter and summer tourism, coexistence with this magnificent animal, so strongly desired and thankfully growing in numbers, all too easily collapses. Atavistic fears and widely publicised intolerance are the unfortunate epilogue, demonstrating how distant coexistence with the bear still is in the minds of many. We no longer attack it with traps or guns, but with a crude presence that shows no respect for those who were there long before us. What awaits us is a long journey that will lead us to a true ecological awareness and environmental education: these will be the only weapons that can bring peace between us and the large carnivores of our fauna.
Credits
Author: N. Emilio Baldaccini, Former Professor of Ethology and Conservation of Zoocenotic Resources at the University of Pisa. He has published over 300 scientific papers in national and international journals. Actively engaged in scientific education, he is also a co-author of academic textbooks on Ethology, General and Systematic Zoology, and Comparative Anatomy.
Translated by Maria Antonietta Sessa
