Push to bring grizzly bears back to California faces backlash |
FILE: Grand Teton National Park’s famous bear, Grizzly 399, along with three cubs, in the fields near Pilgrim Creek, Wyo.
A bill aimed at crafting a plan to reintroduce grizzly bears to California’s ecosystems is making its way through the Legislature, over a century after the state’s official animal was last seen in the wild.
Senate Bill 1305’s success would be the first step in a yearslong process to potentially bring the bears back to California, requiring the Department of Fish and Wildlife to craft a roadmap and feasibility study related to a grizzly reintroduction effort. The bill was introduced by Democratic state Sen. Laura Richardson of San Pedro in February and is sponsored by the Tejon and Yurok tribes, to whom grizzly bears hold a deep cultural, spiritual and historical significance.
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“It’s important for people to realize that the grizzly bear isn’t just a symbol on a flag — it was a real animal that shaped California’s ecosystems and holds deep meaning for Tribal Nations across the state,” Tejon Tribe Chairman Octavio Escobedo III said in an April 2025 news release published by the Center for Biological Diversity.
The release came on the heels of a 200-page feasibility study conducted by researchers at UC Santa Barbara and the University of Washington and published by the California Grizzly Alliance. The study concluded that a recovery program in California could result in a renewed, sustainable grizzly population, though the effort would likely come with a host of political, financial and social challenges.
Those challenges have already started to present themselves: The effort has been met with ample criticism from politicians and California residents, especially the state’s........