Bill Text: CA SB732 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Chaptered

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Bill Title: Bats.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 2-0)

Status: (Passed) 2023-10-08 - Chaptered by Secretary of State. Chapter 502, Statutes of 2023. [SB732 Detail]

Download: California-2023-SB732-Chaptered.html

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Senate Bill No. 732

CHAPTER 502

An act to add Section 425.12 to the Government Code, relating to state government.

[ Approved by Governor  October 08, 2023. Filed with Secretary of State  October 08, 2023. ]

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 732, Menjivar. Bats.

Existing law establishes the state flag and the state’s emblems, including, among other things, the California redwood as the official state tree and the California gray whale as the official state marine mammal.

This bill would establish the pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus) as the official state bat.

Digest Key

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

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Bill Text

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

SECTION 1.

 The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:

(a) Bats eat many pest species including those that contribute to health risks such as mosquitoes, wasps, and flies. A female bat nursing her young will eat more than two-thirds of her body weight in insects and arthropods every night.

(b) Bats provide more than $1,000,000,000 worth of pest control to California agriculture.

(c) Bats eat bark beetles and wood borers, reducing wildfire risk in California forests.

(d) Bats can live up to 40 years and typically raise just one pup a year. This low birth rate makes their populations particularly vulnerable to disruptions like humans encroaching on their habitat and climate change.

(e) The pallid bat is as diverse as Californians – pallid bats live in California’s deserts, oak woodlands, coastal redwood forests, and high up into the pine forests of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They live in social colonies and have a rich language of calls to communicate with one another. The food they eat and the way they catch it varies both within and between different communities of pallid bats around the state.

(f) Naming Antrozous pallidus as the official state bat of California will help promote appreciation, study, and protection of bats in this state.

SEC. 2.

 Section 425.12 is added to the Government Code, to read:

425.12.

 The pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus) is the official state bat.