(a) Upon appropriation by the Legislature, the department may develop a pilot program to collect and compile information and data on wildlife-vehicle collisions to support wildlife conservation efforts conducted through regional conservation investment strategies approved pursuant to Chapter 9 (commencing with Section 1850), the Advance Mitigation Program (Article 2.5 (commencing with Section 800) of Chapter 4 of Division 1 of the Streets and Highways Code), or any policy or project implemented to reduce the loss of wildlife from vehicle collisions. The pilot program shall be at a maximum of three geographically dispersed sites identified by the department to be areas of high wildlife-vehicle collisions.

(b) In developing the pilot program, the department may coordinate with other state agencies that remove dead wildlife from roadways to determine the scope of data collected on wildlife-vehicle collisions.

Terms Used In California Fish and Game Code 1023

  • Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
  • Commission: means the Fish and Game Commission, and "commissioner" means a member of the Fish and Game Commission. See California Fish and Game Code 30
  • Department: means the Department of Fish and Wildlife. See California Fish and Game Code 37
  • State: means the State of California, unless applied to the different parts of the United States. See California Fish and Game Code 83
  • Wildlife: means and includes all wild animals, birds, plants, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and related ecological communities, including the habitat upon which the wildlife depends for its continued viability. See California Fish and Game Code 89.5

(c) At the conclusion of the pilot program, the department shall report to the commission on the number of wildlife-vehicle collisions identified during the study period, barriers to additional data collection, and the feasibility of creating a statewide wildlife-vehicle collision reporting system. The report shall include an estimate of the costs of implementing the statewide wildlife-vehicle collision reporting system.

(Added by Stats. 2019, Ch. 869, Sec. 3. (SB 395) Effective January 1, 2020.)