I think we have different definitions of survived... The bears certain didn't, and that to me is an extraordinarily terrible environmental impact.
I think there's this notion of taking any predator or apex animal out of an ecosystem can cause it to collapse. But early humans hunted many animals to extinctions, at least regionally, and those ecosystems may have changed, but I don't know of any that became inhospitable or void of life as a result.
I'm sure there was some environmental impact of hunting bears to extinction in Central CA, I'm just not aware of it and haven't heard of anyone proposing that we reintroduce them.