By Dr. Svetoslava Toncheva, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and AY2024-25 Fulbright Bulgarian Scholar at the University of California Santa Barbara
The US is a country of contrasts, encompassing both some of the first and largest protected areas – where wilderness is still thriving, and grizzlies and black bears roam freely – to some of the most economically developed spaces in the world. Nature conservation is what brought me to California, to one of the world’s famous environmental studies programs at the University of California Santa Barbara. More than three hundred students graduated from the program in 2025, passionate and eager to begin their work for environmental protection in various institutions in California, the US and beyond. I felt this passion myself, being able to attend some of the classes led by my supervisor, Professor Pete Alagona; I also gave a couple lectures in Environmental Studies and Department of Anthropology, in addition to communicating and working more informally with students, PhD candidates and colleagues. As bears seem to have now marked my career and follow me everywhere, I was not one of the many people shocked by the appearance of two black bears appearing at UCSB campus during my visit. And wasn’t this a “lucky” coincidence? It marked the end of a more than ten-year period since a bear was last spotted on campus. And while the second bear quickly disappeared, the first’s ongoing odyssey caused intense excitement among the students before it tragically died, hit by a car on the freeway while likely looking for its way back to the mountains. The event, however, was a great chance for me to conduct research, assisted by Bella, an environmental studies student, around the role of various actors responsible for bear management and conservation in California and the knowledge involved in the process.
While black bears are not a strictly protected species in California, due to their relatively large number (estimated to be around 60,000), they are managed and conserved by the California Fish and Wildlife Commission. As in Bulgaria, black bears are considered large carnivores; although less intimidating than its cousin the grizzly, the black bear often enters into conflict with humans. This tension is even more pronounced in the US, where black bears are divided into wild and “urban,” that is, bears that mostly inhabit US towns and cities, feeding on human trash and entering local homes. Dealing with these issues is typically not easy, especially for the very few employees of the Fish and Wildlife Commission, who receive constant calls about various bear-related issues. For instance, in Mammoth, a town in the Eastern Sierra Mountains, the large number of bears living near Yosemite national park are considered urban, sharing this famous mountain resort with humans. I attended a lecture by a local ranger who was discussing black bear ecology and behavior with the local community, and what struck me was the interest and care shown by the audience members for their nonhuman neighbors. Despite the fact that some of Americans’ most common concerns may seem funny to some Bulgarians living with brown bears – one of the most serious worries in the US is about threats to pets, primarily cats and dogs – many issues around coexistence are the same: concerns about human and animal safety, ways of keeping the bears at an appropriate distance from human spaces, the lack of institutional support, and so on.
The situation with Californian grizzly bears is different, given that they have been extinct in the state for over a century, even though they long lived in close proximity to humans throughout the history of North America. A visitor wouldn’t suspect their absence when arriving at Los Angelis airport and encountering the numerous grizzly bear souvenirs, images and, above all, the California national flag with its grizzly mascot. The same is true for large number of Americans. However, the last sighting of a grizzly bear was recorded in California in 1925 on the West Slope of Sequoia National Park, only about 100 years after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, when the number of bears dropped from around 10,000 to… zero. This mass extermination was part of the broader paradigm of elimination of anything that stood in the way of profit. Now, 100 years later there is hope that the grizzlies that once roamed freely around the state could come back. In spring 2025, the California Grizzly Alliance released a ten-year feasibility study “Recovering Grizzly Bears in California,” which focuses on the question: “Could grizzly bears be recovered in California? The answer is almost certainly yes.” This research, led by UCSB Professor Peter Alagona provides extensive information to policy makers and conservationists about the steps a possible reintroduction would require, from the history of the grizzlies, though their genomics, required habitat, population viability, to the human, economic and legal contexts the reintroduction would engage with. One of the most powerful messages in the study concerns Hunaet (“grizzly” in the language of the Kitanemuk people, also known as the Tejon Indian Tribe). Octavio Escobedo III, the Chairman of the Tejon, tells us that about 100 years ago, a government agent asked Tejon Chief Juan Lozada how long his people had lived in this region, to which he replied: “We were here on the first day the sun came up. In the Tejon worldview, Hunaet was here even before us—before the sun first illuminated our homelands.” Will Hunaet be back? As Professor Alagona notes, “It’s a now choice for the Californians.”
Both in the US and Bulgaria, humans have lived with bears throughout most of their history, with bears commanding significant space in various beliefs and folklore practices. Remembering this fact today, in the era defined by conservationists as the Sixth Mass Extinction, it may be time to turn towards our non-human neighbors. Although Americans are now facing one of the most dynamic periods of institutional, economic and cultural shifts in their history, while Bulgarians are also experiencing political and economic uncertainties, conservation needs our efforts in both countries, just as bears do. Professor Alagona and I will certainly continue this work in our respective homelands, looking for future opportunities and pathways to continue our collaboration in various forms and formats. I am confident that our insights and inspiration, still dazzlingly bright immediately post-Fulbright, will settle down to a clear way forward and will, most of all, mark my career for a long time to come!
Photo credit: California Grizzly Alliance
