An Italian village better known for having more cats than people has welcomed its first baby in nearly three decades.
The baby, Lara Bussi Trabucco, was born in Pagliara dei Marsi, a remote village in Italy’s Abruzzo region that now has a population of around 20 residents. It’s not known how many cats live in the village, but they far outnumber people.
Per The Guardian, Lara is the first child to be born in the village since the mid-1990s, due, in part, to younger generations departing the village and its remote location looking for work, with only older residents remaining.
Pagliara dei Marsi is located in the Apennine mountains and was once a more active rural settlement, but gradually emptied as schools closed and services disappeared.
Cats outnumber the village’s tiny human population of around 20 individuals.
As homes were left behind and the population aged, stray cats became a more common sight than people, giving the village its unusual reputation.
Why it took nearly 30 years
The combination of declining birth rates in Italy as a whole and the remote nature of Pagliara dei Marsi had a doubling effect on the village’s emptying.
In Pagliara dei Marsi, there were simply no young families left to have children, making a decades-long gap between births inevitable.
Fortunately, the resident feline population hasn’t let the free space go to waste and has even been embraced by the people who still call the town home, with Lara becoming something of a celebrity.
Per The Guardian, Lara’s mother, Cinzia, said, “People who didn’t even know Pagliara dei Marsi existed have come, only because they had heard about Lara. At just nine months old, she’s famous.”
