Where Did California's Grizzlies Go? Museum of Riverside Opens 'California's Grizzlies' at Orange Terrace
The Museum of Riverside, in the city of Riverside in California's Riverside County, has opened its newest "mini-museum," California's Grizzlies: The Natural and Human History of Our Iconic State Animal, at the Orange Terrace Community Center. The exhibition opened on October 30, when Curator of Natural History Ian M. Wright gave a talk at the opening reception, which also featured a grizzly-themed grazing table of foods the bears would eat.
Exhibit sections explain what makes a grizzly a grizzly — their diet, behavior and sheer size. Visitors can stand toe-to-toe with a life-sized grizzly silhouette, compare their hand size to a grizzly's paw, feel a replica of grizzly fur, and see a gigantic replica skull on display. A video section shows the bears' lives and explores their local history: grizzlies were once common across California, including Southern California, and one of the last grizzlies killed in the state met its end in Orange County.
Through maps and historic illustrations, the exhibition also explores the conflict between settlers and grizzlies and the story of local Indigenous peoples, who lived with the bears as part of their environment for millennia — visitors can even learn how to say "grizzly bear" in native languages. As the museum notes, although the grizzly graces California's state flag, wild grizzlies have been gone from the state for about a century; the last sightings were in Northern California.
The Orange Terrace Community Center is at 20010 Orange Terrace Parkway, Riverside. The Museum of Riverside is a City of Riverside department; with its downtown main museum temporarily closed for renovation, these community-center "mini-museums" are how the museum brings exhibitions to residents in the meantime.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：河滨市博物馆主馆大楼（资料图）；本展设在 Orange Terrace 社区中心。图片：经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Museum of Riverside main building (file photo); the exhibition is at the Orange Terrace Community Center. Via Wikimedia Commons.
