The purpose of the California Grizzly Research Network is to promote—through rigorous interdisciplinary research and outreach—a more informed scholarly and public conversation about the past and potential future of grizzly bears in California.
Prior to the Gold Rush, California was home to as many as ten thousand grizzly bears. Grizzlies roamed throughout the state, from the northwest forest to the edge of the Mojave Desert, and from the High Sierra to the Los Angeles Basin. Native peoples developed rich mythologies about and complex relationships with grizzlies. Early European settlers recorded detailed accounts of their experiences with this region's legendary “chaparral bears.” California’s grizzly population plummeted after 1849, however, in a wicked frenzy of unregulated hunting, trapping, and poisoning. The last credible sighting of a California grizzly occurred in 1924 near Sequoia National Park.
For more than a century, scholars and storytellers have treated the epic saga of grizzlies in California as either a frontier legend or a cautionary tale. Today, we are entering a new chapter. Public interest in California’s lost grizzlies has grown, including both media coverage and proposals to reintroduce this iconic species. Yet, after a six-decade gap in almost all research, spanning from 1955 to 2015, we are only beginning to understand this iconic creature.
In May 2016, a multidisciplinary group of scholars based at UC Santa Barbara launched the California Grizzly Research Network. Since then, this increasingly far flung group, now hailing from more than a dozen universities and other research institutions, has worked to answer a host of key questions. Over this time, we have learned that almost everything we thought we knew about grizzly bears in California was wrong. We plan to conclude as much of our work as possible by 2025: the 100th anniversary of the grizzly’s presumed extinction in California.
The California Grizzly Research Network is a diverse group of researchers and educators. We are not an advocacy organization, and we do not support specific policies or management actions. We do, however, believe that better knowledge can foster more effective democratic decision-making processes. For more information on advocacy efforts related to California grizzlies, see the California Grizzly Alliance website, coming in winter 2024.