Proposal to List the Gray Wolf as an Endangered Species
in California
On April 16, 2014, the California Fish
and Game Commission met in Ventura
and one of the agenda items included was
whether or not to list the gray wolf as a
threatened or endangered species in California.
CDA President Jerry Springer was
present and addressed the Commission
regarding this subject with the following
statement.
Good Morning Commissioners
I am Jerry Springer, the president
of the California Deer Association and
a member of the Wolf Stakeholders
Working Group. The California Deer
Association is one of the leading conservation organizations in California
and our members have raised millions
of dollars for the benefit of California’s deer herds and other wildlife.
We have provided funds for wildlife
habitat, research, education and law
enforcement. Here are just a few of our
hundreds of projects.
We helped fund the purchase
of the Big Chico Creek Ecological
Reserve which saved 4,000 acres of
habitat from development and now
provides a place not only for wildlife
but for research and education for students from K-12 through college. We
invested more than a quarter million
dollars to help the Department of Fish
and Wildlife secure and improve the
5,100-acre Cañada de los Osos Ecological Reserve near Morgan Hill. We are
investing thousands of dollars along
with our members’ time, repairing
14
California Deer
the water systems in one
30,000-acre section of the
Carrizo Plains Ecological
Reserve for the benefit of
wildlife from the ground
squirrel to the tule elk.
Our members don’t
just sit back and donate
money, they get dirty too
— they install guzzlers
to supply needed water
for wildlife throughout
California and they have
helped restore burned
areas by planting thousands of bitterbrush
plants.
We also work with private landowners to help improve habitat for the
benefit of the wildlife on their lands.
If you look at our annual project
reports you will see that our members
just don’t talk-the-talk but they put
their money and their backs into helping conserve California’s wildlife.
I am proud to say that we have
accomplished these things by working
cooperatively with landowners, agencies and the public ─ not by lawsuits
or threats of lawsuits.
Today I am here not only representing those thousands of California
Deer Association members, but also
the thousands of members of the Mule
Deer Foundation which is also a member of the Wolf Stakeholders Working
Group.
As a member of the Wolf Stakeholders Working Group, I have spent
more than a year working with others
in this room [