Before Europeans arrived, Grizzly bears were relatively common in California, with an estimated population of 10,000, around 20% of the USA population at the time.
These bears have been made out to be huge meat eaters by those early European settlers, but this is not the case. Instead, they were mostly vegetarian, only occasionally devouring livestock that the Europeans had brought with them. They were also nowhere near the sizes that records claim – citing the figure of 2000 pounds, or 900kg.
The last reliable sighting of the Grizzly bear within California was in 1924, and it is thought that the subspecies went extinct shortly after. The problem is, that all wildlife was seen as murderous beasts, but this simply lines up with prevailing views of wildlife at the time.
Between 1769 and 1848, huge numbers of farms sprang up, from Spanish and Mexican immigrants. The gold rush, starting in 1850 further put pressure on the remaining population. After these periods, Grizzly bears meat consumption grew from 16% to around 25%. This was largely as a result of Europeans removing food that was formerly a part of their diet. Unfortunately, there is a further issue, with newspapers exaggerating the size of bears within the state – by measuring skulls and teeth from museums and trophies, it has been concluded that Californian grizzly bears actually had an average weight of around 200kg – broadly in line with other grizzly bears from across the country.
It is thought, that at the very least, one of the reason that bear sizes were overestimated, is as a result of hunting trophies – but this seems to be an odd place to go, as bigger trophies are always prefeed, so it does not give an accurate indication of the greater population as a whole.
Another bear, that might have helped this idea, was a zoo bear, which was fed on raw beef, apples and biscuits, which not surprisingly caused the bear to become obese. When he died he weighed 1128 lbs (511kg), however, this was a human fed bear and was very unhealthy.
Clearly, the Californian bear subspecies, is incredibly similar to other north American brown bears, and so whether they really warranted a separate subspecies or not is questionable. There are still populations of Grizzly bears within a relatively short distance of California, they may well make their own way back over time.
