State returns land to Tule River tribe

California gives back 17,000 acres to right historical wrongs against Native Americans, paving the way for a host of conservation projects

- BY JESSICA GARRISON

TRAVIS VANZANT California Department of Fish and Wildlife TULE ELK are reintroduced to the Sierra foothills on the Tule River Indian Reservation last month.

In the scrub-brush foothills between the long flat fields of the San Joaquin Valley and the mighty peaks and sequoia forests of the Sierra Nevada, state leaders and elders from the Tule River Indian Tribe gathered last week to mark the return of 17,000 acres of ancestral land to the tribe.

Gov. Gavin Newsom's office called it “the largest ancestral land return in the history of the region and a major step in addressing historical wrongs against California Native American tribes.”