60 MILLION PETS LIVING WITH ITALIAN FAMILIES

In Italy there are an estimated 60 million pets, which are considered by their owners as members of the family.

They tend to belong to larger than average sized families (2.8 components compared with the average of 2.4). Among the most numerous type of pets are fish, which number almost 30 million, and birds (13 million), a figure that places Italy as the number one country in Europe in terms of bird ownership.

There are also almost 7 million dogs, around 7.5 million cats, while other small mammals (such as rabbits, ferrets and rodents such as hamsters, guinea pigs, chinchillas and degus) number 1.8 million and reptiles (tortoises, snakes and iguanas) number around 1.3 million.

These are the figures that emerge from the tenth edition of the Assalco-Zoomark Report, the annual overview of pet ownership, which will be presented today 11th May in Bologna at the opening of Zoomark International 2017.