Bill Text: CA AB64 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Introduced

California Assembly Bill 64

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

Bill Title: Beaver restoration.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)

Status: (Failed) 2024-02-01 - From committee: Filed with the Chief Clerk pursuant to Joint Rule 56. [AB64 Detail]

Download: California-2023-AB64-Introduced.html

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill

No. 64

Introduced by Assembly Member Mathis

December 06, 2022

An act relating to fish and wildlife.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 64, as introduced, Mathis. Fish and wildlife: beaver.

Existing law defines the beaver as a furbearing mammal. Existing law provides various programs related to habitat protection and wildlife conservation.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation that would improve beaver management and conservation across the state. The bill would make related findings and declarations.

Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: NO Local Program: NO

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) The North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) is a keystone species that is native to California and was once prevalent in watersheds throughout the state.

(b) A legacy of beaver trapping, exploitation, and eradication has significantly diminished the beaver population across California, reducing the ecological benefits beavers provide to California’s watersheds, wildlife, and climate.

(c) Beavers provide habitat for a myriad of species, increase biodiversity, and are integral to the conservation and recovery of imperiled species.

(d) Beavers are ecosystem engineers who improve climate change resiliency and watershed health, thereby providing essential ecosystem services to both wildlife and human communities.

(e) Beaver-created dams, ponds, and associated wetlands help mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, drought, and wildfire by enhancing carbon sequestration, increasing water storage, maintaining stream flows, providing flood and erosion control, and establishing riparian corridors that serve as critical fire refugia.

(f) Beaver dams also improve water quality, repair degraded channels, reconnect floodplains, and create and expand diverse wetland and aquatic habitats that support a multitude of species.

(g) Recognizing that beavers are one of the most cost-efficient, sustainable solutions for ecological restoration and climate change resilience, Native American tribes, state and federal agencies, nongovernmental organizations, private landowners, ranchers, scientists, restoration practitioners, and academics are working in partnership to successfully implement beaver restoration projects throughout California.

(h) A proactive, modernized approach to beaver management with a focus on coexistence strategies and high-impact, low-disturbance techniques to bring beavers back to the landscape will enhance the ongoing efforts to restore ecological function to California’s watersheds and increase community resilience to climate change.

(i) Facilitating beaver restoration projects will greatly accelerate stream and wetland restoration and thus would be an enormous asset in achieving California’s goals for wildfire and drought resiliency, 30x30 protections, and nature-based solutions to climate change.