A grizzly bear comeback in California? An old dream gets new legs

A feasibility report using historical maps and ecological data is raising excitement: It would be a slow process'

On the eve of the gold rush, California was teeming with grizzly bears - as many as 10,000 of them. They were so popular that the Bear Flag Republic - a short-lived attempt by a group of US settlers to break away from Mexico in 1846 - used the animals as their mascot; an image that still adorns California's flag.

But by the mid-1920s, the bears were all gone. The last documented sighting of a grizzly bear in California was in the spring of 1924 in Sequoia national park, a lonesome bear wandering among the trees.