The grizzly bear may be emblazoned on California’s state flag, but these bears haven’t roamed the Golden State in more than a century. Now, a group of Democratic lawmakers wants to consider reintroducing them.
Inglewood Senator Laura Richardson’s bill would task the California Department of Fish and Wildlife with creating a study to see if bringing grizzlies back to California is feasible.
California was home to as many as 10-thousand grizzly bears before the Gold Rush. But settlers wiped out the population by the 1920s.
At least 40 groups, including tribes, environmentalists, and animal welfare organizations support the bill. They say reintroducing bears would improve the ecosystem and right an ecological wrong.
That’s a sharp contrast to the rural communities, ranchers, and hunting groups that oppose the bill.
They say the predators we have like mountain lions, black bears, and wolves are eating their livestock and wandering into their towns.
The measure provides no funding to carry out the study.
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