Abruzzo National Park '24

12-09-2024

On this journey i take you to the National Park of Abruzzo, located in the mountains of the Abruzzen in Italy.

In the heart of the Abruzzo National Park, among ancient beech forests, mountains and high altitude prairies, nature occupies every environment making this place one of the wildest in Europe.

This park, among the oldest in Italy, is home to a rich biodiversity, with a thriving population of wolves and above all the emblem of the park, the Marsicano brown bear, an endemic species of these lands. In this period, the violent bellowing of the deer echoes through the valleys of the park, creating a surreal atmosphere. In fact, we are in the midst of the mating season, giving life to one of the most magical periods of the year.

The journey ... to Abruzzo National Park!

We landed in Rome (IT) via a flight from Brussels (BEL) .

After a 2 hours road trip we arrived at base camp where we met the other team members for our expedition.

After eating dinner with the group we visited the Park Rangers of Abruzzo, for a ethical course about wildlife and why animals in Abruzzo are never be fed.

We woke up before dawn and moved to a designated location within the park near the lake for stalking large mammals using camouflage equipment. Some young red deer showed up for a few minutes...

In the afternoon we went back in the forests to an open place to find some herds of red deer. After a while we where lucky to see them pretty close.

After preparing us for the evening shoot with sunset we needed again our camouflage equipment, only there was no sunset but it changed quickly to a rainy evening, but we were able to capture the wild boar

After a nice dinner with the group and talking about the past photographing day we went to sleep. At that time we didn't knew how lucky we would be the next day...

While we were driving to our next place suddenly a Marsican brown bear crossed the road, after jumping out of the car we could only take a few shots while he disappeared in the forests.

"The Marsican brown bear lives its life in isolation and their numbers are dwindling, with 50 bears remaining in the Parco Nazionale d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise. They have characteristics that differ from other brown bear subspecies. The Marsican brown bear, otherwise known as the Apennine brown bear, has a relatively calm temperament, with no aggression shown towards humans. In terms of size, the male Marsican brown bear is larger than most of the other brown bear subspecies, with a weight of around 217 kilograms (478 pounds), while the female is significantly smaller, at around 140 kilograms (310 pounds)."

While driving in the mountains and talking how lucky we were to see a Marsican brown bear we spotted some wolves in the mountains.

We tried to come a little closer to the wolves to make some shots, at the end we were very lucky to make some shots at 840mm focal lenght

Time to go back to base camp, a day we were able to capture the wolf and bear in Abruzzo. This was the talk of the evening with the group during dinner.

Next morning we went again to find red deer, and where hoping to capture them in the water.