Daniel Schwab on the New California Law Protecting Wildlife Corridors

In 2022, seven states enacted laws that provided millions of dollars for constructing wildlife crossing over busy roads. These milestones- in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming- broke new ground in protecting corridors while blazing new trails for repeating or expanding future projects.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Safe Roads and Wildlife Protection Act into law on Sept. 30, which addresses ecosystem connection from a transportation perspective.

Throughout the U.S., wildlife-vehicle collisions are on the rise, which encouraged this state and federal action. It is due to population growth and road traffic in once-rural and remote areas. These collisions have claimed the lives of hundreds of drivers and millions of animals, costing up to $12 billion annually.

Wildlife biologists have commercialized new tracking technology to understand better when, where, and in what numbers wildlife move throughout the year. In many states, the movements of healthy big game populations are crucial to the hunting, fishing, and wildlife-viewing industries that generate millions of dollars annually for local and regional economies. The newly enacted legislation in California is based on initiatives in other states, like New Mexico and Oregon, where new regulations mandate that governments establish or designate certain wildlife corridors. In the case of California, the legislation offers a wide variety of factors, including sensitive, threatened, or endangered species habitats or areas where species' range changes may occur due to climate change, that may promote a region's potential as a connection area.

California's new wildlife corridors law significantly contributes to the increasing number of state statutes that address ecosystem connectivity and driver safety.

About Daniel Schwab, Wyoming

Daniel Schwab is a seasoned businessman and respected community member who lives in Afton, Wyoming. Daniel has always been dazzled by the natural world around him. Daniel's parents and grandparents taught him how to hunt and fly fish while growing up, strengthening his love and respect for his fellow creatures. He put years of effort into the scouting program and became an Eagle Scout, which deepened his love for the great outdoors. Years later, his commitment to protecting the environment still drives his professional and personal pursuits.

Daniel Schwab attended Utah State University to study finance and business. After graduating from college, he launched numerous lucrative start-up businesses, including one specializing in ranchland preservation and restoration, focusing on fish and wildlife habitat restoration. He knows how vital these spring streams were to the habitat of spawning fish and the ecosystem around him. As a youngster, he played with fingerlings in the spring creeks in his backyard. Daniel started to see that there had to be a better method to safeguard the spring streams and surrounding surroundings as he saw the local farmers and ranchers' poor land management practices, which included overgrazing the land and allowing the cattle to ruin the stream banks and contaminate the water supply.

He teamed up with some of the most prosperous businesspeople in the country in 1997, and his company started buying dilapidated ranches in Wyoming and Idaho. Daniel Schwab then employed professionals to assist with obtaining permits, creating plans for the restoration and preservation of the land, and carrying them out.

Only a few years later, in 2002, Daniel’s businesses controlled over 100,000 acres via state and BLM leases and owned some of the most valuable property in Wyoming, with over 30,000 acres deeded to them. He started researching various conservation projects, came across the novel idea of conservation banking, and surrounded himself with the best conservation bank experts in the country. Then Daniel founded the Terrawest Conservancy, a company specializing in building conservation banks and allowing landowners to save vulnerable species and their environments. Daniel aspires to increase the prosperity of the Intermountain West's animals, fisheries, and the people who cherish them via conservation.

In addition to Terrawest Conservancy, Daniel Schwab is the owner of Feathered Hook of Jackson Hole, a prestigious private fly-fishing club, and Renegade Wyoming, a conservation-based in-holding of property in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, offering homesites in a posh fly-in community at the southern end of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.