Wildlife Committee

Mission:

The Sierra Club California Wildlife Committee works on issues related to the protection of all wildlife and their habitats as well as the protection of marine mammals in ocean waters offshore of California.

We develop and carry out Sierra Club campaigns to protect wildlife and wildlife habitat in California.

Our major goals are to provide safe wildlife migration routes, protect wildlife habitat, stop the killing of wildlife and educate elected and appointed officials on the importance of wildife protection.

We work with local and state agencies to achieve the highest possible protection for all wildlife in California. We meet with various elected and appointed officials and speak out at public hearings related to wildlife protection.

Our committee is the Sierra Club voice for the voiceless wildlife in California.

Chair

Jim Hines (Santa Barbara-Ventura Chapter)

Members

Wildlife advocates from throughout the Sierra Club chapters within the CNRCC region.

Goals for 2023:

** Getting the State of California to designate the Southern California population of mountain lions and their habitat as endangered.

** Getting designation of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary in federal ocean waters off of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties to protect ocean habitat for marine species.

** Continue to work with state and local governments to provide wildlife passages over roadways, highways and freeways.

** Continue our work as a member of the State of California Wolf Stakeholder Committee on the protection of gray wolves in Northern California.

** Getting federal endangered species protections for the Southern California sub-population of Spotted Owls.

** Getting designation as endangered the central coast and Southern California population of steelhead trout.

** Protection of wildlife in the Ballona Wetlands State Preserve in Los Angeles County.

** Continuing to monitor the implementation of legislation we worked on to phase out and ban the use in ocean waters of deadly longline fishing nets used by the commercial fishing industry to catch commercial fish species but also entangle and kill hundreds of whales and other marine mammals each year. We worked with the office of U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein to get legislation passed and signed by President Biden in January 2023.