The grizzly bear once roamed most of California, so many lived here before the Gold Rush that settlers named their short-lived breakaway nation the Bear Flag Republic after it. The animal is still stamped at the center of the state flag today.

By the 1920s, hunting and trapping had wiped out every one. Now the only place to find a California grizzly is a zoo, a flag, or a license plate.

State Senator Laura Richardson's Senate Bill 1305 would have taken a small step toward changing that: no bears released, no funding attached, just a study asking the California Department of Fish and Wildlife whether reintroduction could ever work. Two Native American tribes and several environmental and animal welfare groups backed it, arguing California owes the species an ecological debt after erasing it entirely.

On August 13, 2026, the Assembly Appropriations Committee killed the bill without debate or public testimony. Committee Chair Assemblymember Buffy Wicks said the state needs a coexistence plan first, pointing to conflicts between ranchers and California's returning gray wolves. That is a real concern, but a feasibility study is exactly the tool that could help answer it. Blocking the study does not solve coexistence. It just guarantees more guessing.

California put a grizzly on its flag, then hunted the real thing into oblivion. Sign the petition urging the California Legislature and Assembly Appropriations Committee Chair Buffy Wicks to revive the grizzly bear feasibility study, so the animal on our flag isn't only a memory.