{"id":434828,"date":"2026-08-16T22:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T22:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/434828\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T22:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T22:58:09","slug":"california-lawmakers-kill-grizzly-bear-reintroduction-bill-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/434828\/","title":{"rendered":"California lawmakers kill grizzly bear reintroduction bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/politics\/2026\/08\/lawmakers-kill-grizzly-bill\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">This story<\/a> was originally published by CalMatters. <a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/subscribe-to-calmatters\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lawmakers on Thursday killed a <a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/politics\/2026\/07\/california-grizzly-bear-reintroduction-bill\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">controversial plan<\/a> that could have allowed grizzly bears to one day return to California.<\/p>\n<p>The Assembly Appropriations Committee spiked Inglewood Democratic Sen. Laura Richardson\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org\/bills\/ca_202520260sb1305\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Senate Bill 1305<\/a>. The measure would have tasked the California Department of Fish and Wildlife with creating a \u201croadmap that evaluates whether, and under what conditions, reintroduction of the grizzly bear is feasible and advisable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As is typical with the Legislature\u2019s appropriations committees, lawmakers didn\u2019t discuss the bill; nor did they take public testimony before the committee\u2019s chairperson, Democratic Assemblymember <a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org\/legislators\/buffy-wicks-165044\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Buffy Wicks<\/a>, announced the decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Grizzlies once lived across most of California. As many as 10,000 may have roamed before the Gold Rush. They were so prevalent that when California settlers tried to form their own nation, they called it the Bear Flag Republic. A grizzly bear is memorialized on California\u2019s flag.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Settlers systematically exterminated the animals. They were gone by the 1920s, leaving the smaller black bear as California\u2019s only surviving native bear species.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two Native American tribes consponsored the bill, and several animal welfare and environmental groups supported it. They argued that bringing the second largest land predator back to America\u2019s most populated state would right an ecological wrong and help restore California\u2019s degraded ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Opponents included ranchers, hunting associations and rural communities. They argued that California is far too populated with people to sustain another apex predator. Rural communities are already overwhelmed with conflicts with mountain lions, black bears and wolves that attack livestock and wander into their towns, opponents said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The measure set aside no funding for the study, but it allowed for a future Legislature or an outside group to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. Lawmakers on Thursday killed a controversial&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[11604,1843,643,104071,74,76,75,172633],"class_list":["post-434828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-bears","tag-california-legislature","tag-environment","tag-grizzly-bears","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sb-1305"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434828","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=434828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}