Less than 75 years after the discovery of gold, every grizzly bear in California had been tracked down and killed. It killed livestock and interfered with settlers. As humans began to populate California, the grizzly stood its ground, refusing to retreat in the face of advancing civilization. Before dying out in California, this largest and most powerful of carnivores thrived in the great valleys and low mountains of the state, probably in greater numbers than anywhere else in the United States. The California grizzly bear (Ursus californicus) was designated official State Animal in 1953. Photo credit: “California red-legged frog (Threatened)” by Robert Fletcher, Ohlone Preserve Conservation Bank, is licensed © CC BY 2.0 Animal It is now found primarily in coastal regions from Marin County to northern Baja California.

Fish and Wildlife Service listed it as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It has lost 70 percent of its former habitat range, and in 1996, the U.S. Recent development and competition from invasive species have also been hard on the California red-legged frog. He returned to the hills to recover, climbing Mount Rainier in Washington and writing Ascent of Mount Rainier.Perhaps best known for its probable appearance in Mark Twain’s short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” the California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii) is the largest native frog in the western United States and is almost exclusive to California.ĭuring the Gold Rush, miners ate nearly 80,000 frogs per year. In 1888 after seven years of managing the Strentzel fruit ranch in Alhambra Valley, California, his health began to suffer.

He documented this experience in journal entries and newspaper articles-later compiled and edited into his book The Cruise of the Corwin. He returned for further explorations in southeast Alaska in 1880 and in 1881 was with the party that landed on Wrangel Island on the USS Corwin and claimed that island for the United States. Muir recorded over 300 glaciers along the river's course. He traveled into British Columbia a third of the way up the Stikine River, likening its Grand Canyon to «a Yosemite that was a hundred miles long». Young and a group of Native American Guides first traveled to Alaska in 1879 and were the first Euro-Americans to explore Glacier Bay. John Muir made four trips to Alaska, as far as Unalaska and Barrow.

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