{"id":2236,"date":"2025-10-13T20:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T20:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/2236\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T20:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T20:31:07","slug":"californias-newest-state-symbols-tell-a-story-of-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/2236\/","title":{"rendered":"California&#8217;s newest state symbols tell a story of survival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gov. Gavin Newsom has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/politics\/article\/california-bans-cat-procedure-21094945.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">busy in recent weeks<\/a> signing bills on everything from housing policy to prescription drug costs. But he also signed legislation last week that included two new symbols for California.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Golden State officially named the giant garter snake as the state snake. The reptile is only found in California, though its population has shrunk by more than 90% in the past century due to habitat loss. It\u2019s endemic to the Central California region and has been classified as \u201cthreatened\u201d since 1971 by the California Endangered Species Act and since 1993 by the Federal Endangered Species Act.<\/p>\n<p>The new designation will help raise awareness of the species and the dangers to its survival. The snake is truly giant\u00a0\u2014\u00a0reaching up to 64 inches in length\u00a0\u2014 and is mostly found near flood basins in the Central Valley, from Butte County to Kern County.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe declaration to make the threatened giant garter snake the State Snake of California is not just symbolic, but will educate hundreds of thousands of students each year about California\u2019s unique wildlife and ecosystems, inspiring them to take action to conserve these important natural resources,\u201d Michael Starkey, founder of Save the Snakes, a nonprofit snake conservation organization, told SFGATE in an email.<\/p>\n<p>California also gained an official state shrub, the bigberry manzanita. The plant, which can grow as large as a small tree, is emblematic of the state\u2019s resilience. It propagates largely by wildfire, taking root in dry, nutrient-poor soils after fire aids in cracking its seeds. A useful rebuilding tool, the green shrub with white flowers can also prevent erosion with its radially spreading root system\u00a0\u2014 an especially helpful trait in burn scar locations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur state symbols celebrate California\u2019s uniqueness, especially our distinctive ecosystems. California is a global biodiversity hotspot, with both the highest total number of species and the highest number of endemic species in the United States\u00a0\u2014 including our new state shrub and snake,\u201d Newsom wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Gavin Newsom has been busy in recent weeks signing bills on everything from housing policy to prescription&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,3099,3100],"class_list":{"0":"post-2236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-sfgcalifornia","12":"tag-sfgpolitics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}