The people of California find and declare all of the following:
(a)
Protection, enhancement, and restoration of wildlife habitat and fisheries are vital to maintaining the quality of life in California. As the state’s human population increases, there is an urgent need to protect the rapidly disappearing wildlife habitats that support California’s unique and varied wildlife resources.
(b)
Much of the state’s most important deer winter ranges have been destroyed in the last 20 years.
(c)
Critical winter ranges of migratory deer in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges are increasingly subject to incompatible land uses. In some counties, over 80 percent of the critical winter ranges fall on these lands. The potential for incompatible land uses on these lands is a major threat to the survival of many migratory deer herds.
(d)
Deer, mountain lion, and other wildlife habitat within the Sierra Nevada, Cascade, Coast Range (including the Santa Lucia Mountains in Monterey County along the Central Coast), Siskiyou and Klamath Mountains; and the Santa Susana, Simi Hills, Santa Monica, San Gabriel, San Bernardino, San Jacinto, Santa Ana and other mountains and foothill areas within southern California,
is disappearing rapidly. Small and often isolated wildlife populations are forced to depend upon these shrinking habitat areas within the heavily urbanizing areas of this state. Corridors of natural habitat must be preserved to maintain the genetic integrity of California’s wildlife.
(e)
This chapter shall be implemented in the most expeditious manner. All state officials shall implement this chapter to the fullest extent of their authority in order to preserve, maintain, and enhance California’s diverse wildlife heritage and the habitats upon which it depends.