Deadly apex predator being mulled for release in California after 100-year absence

California bears could get more grizzly soon.

California lawmakers are pondering whether to re-introduce the grizzly bear after more than a century of being extinct in the state.

A new California Senate bill,  Senate Bill 1305, would direct the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to create a “roadmap” for how the massive bear species could be brought back.

The roadmap would need to include a scientific assessment of the viability of bringing the bears back and a consultation with California Native American tribes.

The legislation promotes the ecological and cultural benefits of bringing the bear back.

The bill states grizzlies “promote biodiversity and ecosystem heterogeneity by modifying vegetation composition and structure, regulating trophic dynamics, accelerating geomorphic processes, enriching soils with marine and terrestrial nutrients, dispersing seeds, and initiating secondary ecological processes.”

It also states that the bears hold “enduring cultural, religious, spiritual, and ceremonial significance for many California Native American tribes.”

Grizzlies are solidified in California history despite being absent for many generations. The grizzly bear is on the California state flag and UCLA’s team mascot is the “Bruins,” a reference to a brown bear.

But there’s some doubt around the viability of returning the massive bears to the state. Outside of their large and intimidating presence, there’s many questions to be answered about them.

“Recovering grizzly bears in California is a choice,” Alex McInturff, co-editor of the study and assistant unit leader of U.S. Geological Survey’s Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, told the Los Angeles Times.

“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,” he added.

An April 2025 study found that 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.”

A “well-resourced” recovery would involve funding up to $3 million a year for the first decade of the program, the study said.

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