Support California Watchable Wildlife's Future

Since 1990, the mission of California Watchable Wildlife has been to enhance, elevate, and promote wildlife viewing and nature appreciation for the benefit of society, while building community awareness, understanding, and support for the conservation of wildlife and the habitats upon which these activities depend. I hope we can all agree that we have more than exceeded these goals.

Our project addresses a growing interest in wildlife viewing and nature tourism by educating the public about where and how to view native wildlife and habitats in a respectful and sustainable way while building support for long-term conservation and management of California’s natural resources. We are comprised of, and funded by, federal and state representatives, non-profits, destination marketing organizations, and private-sector businesses who work collaboratively to establish wildlife viewing sites throughout the state, maintain an interactive website which is searchable by location and species, use social media, provide outreach at wildlife/nature festivals, and sponsor a California wildlife photo of the year contest.

For the past several years, our annual budget (funded by our partners) was approximately $15,000. This covers the cost of our website, webmaster, Constant Contact, Zoom, the Outreach Coordinator, and photo contest. In 2024, due to federal and state budget cuts, we lost $8,000 of our budget - $5,000 of that supported the California Wildlife Photo of the Year Contest. These cuts will likely continue in 2025 and may never be returned.

So now I am reaching out to ask for your support to help with funding to help California Watchable Wildlife stay afloat. I hope you appreciate the importance of this program. California Watchable Wildlife is like no other program in the nation. We have sustained our work for more than 30 years with little or no funding. Generally speaking, much of the mission of CAWW is to promote education and conservation of wildlands for current and future generations. Creating stewardship – especially with children – to preserve open spaces – understanding that so many of our wild places have been lost to development or overuse. Your contribution will help us to continue our amazing work and raise the next generation of land stewards.

We hope we can count on you to sustain this incredible organization.