For thousands of years, grizzly bears roamed California, from the far north to what is now the Mexican border.
Often 8 feet tall when standing, weighing in at a thousand pounds or more, they were golden brown, with a pronounced shoulder hump, and they typically lived for 20 to 30 years. It's estimated there were 10,000 in the state at the beginning of the 19th century.
To Teddy Roosevelt, the grizzly was a "great shaggy mountain king," as he wrote in The Times in 1892. To the early California cattle ranchers and sheep farmers, grizzlies were a persistent threat to livestock. To native people, they were often viewed with religious reverence.
