Grizzly Bear Reintroduction Into California

History:

Grizzly bears used to roam the mountains and coast of California.  In the early 1900s, Californians experienced a large portion of grizzly bear conflicts.  Through poisoning and trapping, the grizzly bears were killed off.  The last recorded sighting of a California grizzly bear, in the wild, was in 1924.  For over 100 years, there have been no recorded grizzly bears on the California landscape.

Facts:

Mountain Lion

Since 1990, California has been a state of Ballot Box Biology.  Proposition 117 made the California mountain lion a protected species.  Ever since then, the California mountain lion population has been booming.  While the take of mountain lions has not stopped, now the taxpayer pays for it instead of hunters.  On average, 72 mountain lions are killed each year as a result of mountain lion and human conflicts.  

Black Bear

California has the highest population of black bears in the Lower 48.  California has a conservative estimate of 60,000 black bears within the state.  Even with California being a very large state, black bears don’t inhabit all of the state (only 40% of the state).  This creates a large density of bears.  In 2012, California passed a law that outlaws hound hunting for bears starting in the 2013 season.  In 2012, 1,962 bears were reported as taken during the season.  The following year (2013) without the use of hounds, that number dropped to 1,078 bears.  

California has a quota of 1,700 bears and in 2024 there were only 976 bears taken.  With the booming population of black bears, comes human and bear conflicts.  There is also another problem that does not get reported on much, black bears love to scavenge mountain lion kills.  

Wolves  

Wolves started to naturally recolonize California starting in 2011.  Growing up in northwestern California, we always speculated that there were wolves in that country long before California Fish and Wildlife officially would recognize it.  As of 2024, California estimates the population of wolves to be 132.  For those who live and spend time in the northern portions of California, that number appears to be low.  The conflicts are growing each month, and the wolf appears to have little to no fear of humans. 

Bobcats    

Effective January 2020, California banned the take of bobcats via Assembly Bill 1254.  Another Ballot Box Biology moment in a long history of poor decisions made by the California Legislature. 

Proposal

I mention all of these predators to show you how poorly California manages its predators.  For the game species in California, this spells disaster.  California declared 2024 as the year of the grizzly bear.  There have been efforts in the state to consider the reintroduction of the grizzly bear into the mountains of California.  

California believes that the landscape can hold up to 1,180 grizzly bears.  To put that in perspective, Wyoming has an estimated population of 600 grizzly bears.  Montana is said to have 2,000 grizzly bears.  If you pay any attention to the news, you will see how often there are conflicts between humans and grizzlies.  Some of these conflicts do end in deaths of humans.  

Those two states boast a large number of conflicts with populations significantly lower than California.  Montana has a 2025 population of over 1.1 million and Wyoming has a population of almost 600,000.  California has a population of over 42 million.  While a lot of that population lives in large cities, there are still a large number of Californians that live or recreate in the areas where the grizzly reintroduction would take place.  

Opinion

As wild as the idea sounds, it’s not as unlikely to happen as one would think.  California has a long history of Ballot Box Biology (as seen above) and this could very well be in Californian’s future.  That would mean mountain lions, wolves, grizzly bears and bobcats would not be managed at all by hunters.  This also comes only a couple years after the California Legislature tried to put a total ban on black bear hunting too.  

With overabundance of predators on the landscape the ungulates and other game species are doomed.  Even if California properly managed their other predators and let hunters do their part, do you think there is room for grizzly bears in California?  After what is happening in Colorado with the wolves, is this a “hold my bear” moment once again for California to one up the stupidity of another state?

As always, we’d love to hear your take on the idea of reintroducing grizzlies to the Golden State. 

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