California has a grizzly bear on its flag, but it hasn’t had any grizzly bears in its forests, meadows or mountains for 90 years.
It’s possible that could change, however.
The L.A. Times reports federal wildlife officials are weighing an environmental group’s request to set aside 110,000 square miles of land for grizzlies in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. The Center for Biological Diversity envisions 300 to 400 grizzly bears in California, most likely in overlapping parks and wilderness areas in the Southern Sierra.
If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agrees to consider the group’s request, it would start a lengthy process of scientific studies and public hearings.Not everyone thinks reintroducing grizzlies to the Golden State is a good idea. Critics say encounters between bears and people would be frequent. They point out that California had about three-and-a-half million people in 1924 when the last grizzly bear here was killed, compared to 38 million now.
Read more about how a grizzly bear came to be on the California flag: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/CA-grizzly-bear-Monarch-a-symbol-of-suffering-2372855.php
http://www.monarchbear.org/monarch/