California State Animal: Grizzly Bear

The grizzly bear's path to becoming California's state animal began not with legislation but with revolution. On June 14, 1846, a group of American settlers seized the town of Sonoma from Mexican authorities. They declared the short-lived California Republic and raised a flag featuring a grizzly bear. That flag—and the bear on it—outlasted the republic by nearly 180 years.

By 1953, the California grizzly had been gone for almost thirty years. Lawmakers chose it anyway. No other animal carried the same weight of history for the state. The bear on the flag was already the most recognized image of California, making the formal designation a natural and fitting step.

On June 14, 1846, American settlers in Sonoma rose up against Mexican rule and formed the California Republic. They raised a flag showing a grizzly bear standing on green grass, with a lone red star above. William B. Ide served as president of the new republic. The California Republic lasted only 25 days before American forces absorbed the territory during the Mexican-American War, but the bear flag became a permanent part of California's identity.

Grizzly bears held significance for many Indigenous groups across California long before Europeans arrived. The Yokuts, Chumash, and Miwok all lived in regions where bears were common. Some groups treated hunting a bear as a serious ceremonial event, believing the animal's spirit required proper thanks. These traditions reveal that the grizzly bear was woven into California's culture thousands of years before the Bear Flag Revolt made it an official symbol.

Before 1800, an estimated 24,000 grizzly bears lived across California. They shaped the landscape as they moved—digging for ground squirrels, turning over rocks, and spreading seeds through their movements. Each autumn, bears gathered along Central Valley rivers during salmon runs, sometimes dozens at a single fishing spot. Early Spanish missionaries wrote about bears with a mix of fear and fascination in their mission journals.

The California Gold Rush brought hundreds of thousands of newcomers starting in 1849. Many hunters targeted grizzly bears for sport, for fur, and to protect livestock and farms. Within fifty years of large-scale hunting, grizzly bears had vanished from most of California. The last confirmed California grizzly was killed in 1924, ending a subspecies that had existed in the region for thousands of years.

California has always prized its independent streak. The state entered the Union in 1850 as a free state, rejecting the national compromise on slavery. During the Civil War, California remained far from the fighting but sent troops to support the Union cause. The grizzly bear on the flag captures this tradition—a fierce, self-reliant animal that asked nothing from anyone and yielded to no other creature.

Before European contact, grizzly bears inhabited nearly every ecosystem in California. They lived along the coast, across the Central Valley, in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and even in desert scrublands near the Mexican border. Spanish missionaries documented bears near their coastal missions as early as the 1700s. The species was so common that early American settlers described seeing dozens of bears in a single day along river valleys.

An extinct animal remains California's state symbol for one reason: no other animal connects as deeply to the state's founding story. The grizzly bear appeared on the Bear Flag Revolt banner in 1846, four years before California became a state. Replacing the symbol would mean erasing a core piece of state history. The bear on the flag was never meant to represent a living species—it represents who California chose to be when it first declared itself a nation.

The California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the UC Berkeley Museum of Natural History both hold grizzly bear specimens and historical research. The California State Capitol in Sacramento displays state symbol information and historical flags. In Sonoma, the Bear Flag Monument marks the exact spot where the California Republic was declared in 1846.

Hunting was the primary cause of the California grizzly's extinction. Spanish colonists, Mexican ranchers, and American settlers all killed bears—sometimes for safety, sometimes for sport, sometimes to protect livestock. By the late 1800s, habitat loss from farming and development had already reduced the bears' range dramatically. The combination of relentless hunting and shrinking habitat made extinction inevitable within a few decades.

Although the California subspecies is extinct, grizzly bears still live in parts of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, and Alaska. These bears belong to different subspecies from the California grizzly. Some conservation groups have discussed whether grizzly bears could someday be reintroduced to California's wilderness, but no formal plans exist. The idea remains controversial among scientists, landowners, and state agencies.

California's state flag traces its design back to the Bear Flag Revolt of June 14, 1846. The original flag was hand-sewn and featured a rough drawing of a grizzly bear. The current design was standardized in 1911 and refined again in 1963. Today the bear stands on a green patch of grass, with a red star above and 'California Republic' below. The state seal also features the grizzly bear alongside a miner, a ship, and other California symbols.

California's state flower, the California poppy (Eschscholzia californica), was designated in 1903. Both the poppy and the grizzly bear connect to the Gold Rush era that transformed the state starting in 1849. Poppies still bloom across the hillsides that prospectors once stripped bare. The grizzly bear vanished as Gold Rush settlers poured into California during that same period. Together, these two symbols capture opposite sides of that transformation—the beauty that stayed and the wildness that was lost.

California's state tree, the coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), designated in 1937, is the tallest living organism on Earth. Like the grizzly bear, redwood trees existed in California for thousands of years before humans arrived. Both species survived ice ages and drastic climate shifts over millennia. The redwood still stands; the grizzly bear does not. Side by side, these two symbols tell the story of what ancient California was and what parts of it survive today.

California's state motto, 'Eureka' (Greek for 'I have found it'), was adopted in reference to the Gold Rush. The word connects to discovery and sudden fortune. The grizzly bear, in its own way, also marks a moment of discovery—it was among the first large animals that Gold Rush newcomers encountered when they entered California's wilderness. Both symbols point back to 1849 and the events that made California what it is.