LOS ANGELES — Grizzly bears are extinct in California but still show up everywhere you look.
The golden bruins emblazon the state flag and seal, live on in cartoonish effigy as university mascots, and roll off the tip of our tongue in place names like Grizzly Flats and Big Bear Lake.
But what if the real ursine deal could be brought back?
A new study indicates that they can be — roughly 1,180 of them — and Southern California mountains are among prime potential habitat for the apex predators. Whether they should be is a question for 40 million Californians and their policymakers.
The state’s official animal inspires awe and holds cultural significance for tribes, and researchers note that they pose low statistical danger. But some wildlife officials say reintroducing grizzlies — which can weigh up to 1,000 pounds and run 35 mph for short bursts — would lead to increased conflict between humans and bears. An estimated 60,000 black bears roam the state, and property damage, break-ins and the first confirmed fatality linked to the bruins have made headlines in recent years.
“Recovering grizzly bears in California is a choice,” said Alex McInturff, co-editor of the study and assistant unit leader of U.S. Geological Survey’s Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. “We can choose to do it by making necessary investments and creating the necessary partnerships to make it possible. There’s habitat available. A number of questions can be answered. But it’s a choice.”
California was home to as many as 10,000 bears before the Gold Rush in 1848, but their fortunes turned swiftly.
Human-fueled habitat loss drove down their numbers, but their ultimate demise came at the hands of hunters and trappers.
In 1916, the last known grizzly roaming Southern California was gunned down in the Sunland area of L.A., and aptly became known as the Sunland Grizzly.
Just a few years later, in the spring of 1924, California’s last known grizzly bear was spotted in Sequoia National Park.
While they’re unlikely to return to the state on their own, “[a] well-planned, well-resourced and well-managed reintroduction and recovery program could, however, likely establish a sustainable California grizzly population in one or more recovery areas over several decades,” the study released Tuesday states.
Behind the study is the Grizzly Alliance Network, a group of collaborators that include researchers, tribal leaders and wildlife advocates working to bring the bears back to the state.
Spanning just over 200 pages, the report pulls together novel and existing research to explore where in the state bears could live and how many could live in those areas, as well as economic effects, safety considerations and other dimensions. Reintroducing the bears would require moving them from a place they currently live, such as Yellowstone National Park, into California.
Using several habitat suitability models, the study identifies three potential regions where the bears could live: in the Transverse Ranges stretching from the coast to the desert in Southern California (with a focus on large, protected areas in the Los Padres National Forest); the entire Sierra Nevada (with emphasis on the southern part of the range); and the Northwest Forest (which includes the Klamath Mountains, Trinity Alps and other nearby ranges in the northwest corner of the state).
The study reports that the regions contain large swaths of protected, high-quality habitat, but does not advocate for any or all of them to actually be used.
Assuming bears couldn’t live outside the designated regions, the study estimates that California could house around 1,183 grizzlies: 115 in the Transverse Ranges, 832 in the Sierra Nevada, and 236 in the Northwest Forest.
Researchers priced a “well-resourced” recovery program at up to $3 million a year for the first decade. It represents .4% of the budget for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, based on 2024—25 figures, according to the study.
Grizzlies often invoke fear — as an animal standing 8 feet tall with prodigious claws does — and human safety is often a top concern when discussing grizzly recovery. But the study says the statistical risk the animals pose to humans is “extremely small.” Of the estimated average fatalities caused by wildlife every year in the U.S., 96% stem from car collisions with deer, the study reports.
Still, the risk isn’t zero. In North America, there are roughly 1.5 fatalities associated with bears annually, researchers said.
A separate 2019 study examining brown bear (a group that includes the grizzly) attacks on humans across much of their global range between 2000 and 2015 found that attacks increased significantly over time.
Researchers said the increase was likely due to several factors, including the growth of bear and human populations, leading to increased habitat overlap. They also noted that a growing number of people are recreating in areas bears live.
Grizzly bears also bring benefits, including dispersing seeds and aerating soil. At large enough numbers, they can keep other species like black bears in check.
Peter Tira, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the state lacks the resources and wouldn’t be able to prioritize reintroducing grizzlies, given all its existing responsibilities.
California, he said, no longer offers abundant stores of salmon that bears are believed to have once fed on or opportunities to roam on the now-highly developed coast. Given their tendency to range widely, he said there’s no reason to assume they’ll stay put in far-flung areas.
“Reintroducing grizzly bears potentially into places where people live, recreate and raise livestock would likely necessitate further management of human-wildlife conflicts, which is already extremely challenging with the animal species that are here — notably mountain lions, wolves, black bears and coyotes,” Tira said in a statement.
Bruce McLellan, a retired grizzly bear research ecologist and author of “Grizzly Bear Science and the Art of a Wilderness Life,” admits he initially thought the idea of reintroducing grizzlies in California was crazy — in part because of the sheer number of people who live in the state. But much of the population is jammed into the lower half of the state, he realized upon closer inspection.
In British Columbia, where McLellan lives, the southern part of the province is home to most of its 5 million people — and that region now supports hundreds of grizzlies as the population has rebounded over time. People have largely acclimated to their presence, he said.
“It makes me think that it’s certainly biologically possible to have grizzly bears in those remoter corners of California,” he said.
Sure, he said, it would bring conflicts — an odd bear will wander down from the mountains and snatch someone’s chickens; an odd bear would have to be shot — but there are effective ways of dealing with conflict. People would need to be “bear aware” and potentially install electric fences, he said.
Grizzlies are also “very adaptable,” he said, noting that they don’t need salmon or unfettered beach access to survive.
“A lot of people where I live like to see grizzles in their yard,” McLellan said. “I love it.”
Yet even if Californians decided they wanted bears, he believes the U.S. lacks an adequate process to make it happen.
McLellan was involved in efforts to restore grizzlies in the North Cascades in Washington state and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area in Montana and Idaho. Yet decades of expending money and energy hasn’t brought them to fruition, he said.
“I’ve been disheartened having been involved with both of them,” he said.
Peter Alagona, an environmental studies professor at UC Santa Barbara who led the study, however, sees a California grizzly comeback as a way to dispel such ideas.
“I think it would light a fire under people to show that we can do some things that we didn’t think we could do,” said Alagona, who in 2016 founded the California Grizzly Research Network.
Alagona also said it would serve as a form of reparative justice.
In a foreword for the study, Octavio Escobedo III, chairperson of the Tejon Indian Tribe, highlights what he describes as “parallel paths” forcibly walked by Native Americans and grizzlies subject to state-sanctioned ideology that “drove the relentless persecution of both Indigenous people and grizzly bears.”
The Tejon tribe, he writes, is among hundreds of Indigenous nations that value and revere the grizzly, and are leading efforts to conserve and coexist with the species.
McInturff, the federal employee, who is also an associate professor at University of Washington, said the new study marks a turning point in the discussion by providing a compilation of the best available science.
“There were a lot of speculations, a lot of assumptions, and now we actually have a body of research that we can look at to speak in an informed way about this topic,” he said.
At some point, Alagona intends to present the findings of the study to the California Fish and Game Commission, which sets wildlife policy for the state.
Last year, the Commission and the state Senate passed resolutions recognizing the centennial anniversary of the extirpation of the California grizzly, with the Senate declaring 2024 the “Year of the Grizzly.”
This month marks the 101st anniversary.
