Tony Tucci, Chair and Co-founder

CLAW's founding co-director Tony Tucci is passionate about land use issues and maintaining open spaces throughout the Santa Monica Mountains. He is a native Angeleno who became an accidental activist when he experienced an egregious development and loss of nearly an acre of pristine forest in his backyard. You can find some details of that experience in a City Watch article here.

With more than 15 years behind him advocating for wildlife, public open space and many other neighborhood issues, he is past vice-president of the Laurel Canyon Association, a past delegate to the Hillside Federation, a past member of the Citizen Oversight Committee for Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, and a past board member of the Bel Air Beverly Crest Neighborhood Council. 

In 2016, CLAW actively campaigned for ballot measures supporting parklands and Tony received an Official Certificate of Appreciation from the City of Los Angeles presented by Councilmember Paul Koretz, “The City thanks you for your efforts in promoting the passing of Measures FF and GG and in helping maintain and conserve local open space, wildlife corridors, and parklands. Through steadfast ways and caring deeds, you have made the City of Los Angeles a better place in which to work, live and play!” 

Tony is working daily with communities to navigate bureaucracy in order to serve CLAW's missions along with a strong opinion that we are incrementally destroying LA's unique natural resources and that our local government should in no way encourage or accelerate such a loss.

Alison Simard, Co-director and Co-founder

Alison Simard is passionate about wilderness conservation and wildlife education and uses her public relations, event planning and marketing/branding expertise to make actionable change in environmental policies. Throughout her career, Alison has worked to balance urban and rural life as an activist and a public relations expert moving from New York to Montana to Alaska to California. She began her career in the environmental committee in Sacramento Capital representing the Mountain Lion Foundation and has participated in a variety of wildlife, environment, and alternative energy campaigns.

In 2000 in the backyard of her home in Laurel Canyon, upon witnessing the degradation of an ancient animal passageway, Alison organized along with several neighbors to save a wildlife corridor. When it became clear that the city was not enforcing its own environmental conditions, she filed a lawsuit against the developer and the City of Los Angeles. Through compelling docu-protest videos with her partners at CLAW and Alison’s achievement of widespread news coverage, the city and developer made a permanent easement for wildlife passage. In 2013, Alison envisioned and co-founded CLAW, where she continues to work to protect wildlife and their habitats throughout Los Angeles’ urban interfaces.

Alison currently serves as Director of Marketing and Communications at Heal the Bay, a nonprofit dedicated to keep greater LAs watersheds and coastal waters healthy, clean, and safe for everyone. Previously, she served more than five years as Director of Communications and Wildlife Legislative Deputy for Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Koretz and the Fifth Council District as part of the team that developed and helped initiate LA City's Biodiversity Expert Council and Climate Emergency Mobilization Office - the first in the nation.

Shawn Silver, Co-director

While earning a BA in Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Shawn created the show Habitat for UNC-CH Cable TV on the abundance of nature found on campus. She spent summers interning at 60 Minutes, The New York Times and studying with the Wildlands Studies Program through San Francisco State University. Her first job out of college was shadowing an environmental reporter at the CBS affiliate WRAL-TV in Durham, NC where she put together a reel that landed her first reporting job at NBC affiliate KIEM-TV in Eureka, CA.  As morning and then evening anchor, she wrote, produced and filmed dozens of stories on the local environment, including a three-part special on Coho salmon and their plight, and stories on the headwaters of the old-growth coastal redwoods in Humboldt County.  

After moving to Los Angeles to produce for an Australian science program called Beyond 2000, Shawn went on to write and produce nature documentaries for Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel including Earth’s Fury, Storm Warning and The Top 10 Environmental Disasters.  When she chose to leave the workforce and start a family, she created her own company called Dutch Touch Art, designing and commissioning a series of hand-painted oils for the design industry, based on the Netherland’s Golden Age and their iconic depictions of nature in the wild.  Shawn served as Chair of a non-profit organization called Friends of Wonderland, which raised more than $600K annually for enrichment programs at Wonderland Elementary School in Laurel Canyon. Shawn is currently the Director of Advancement and Events for 826LA, a non-profit that provides free tutoring and writing programs to more than 9,000 underserved Los Angeles students.

Paul Edelman, Deputy Director, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy

Samantha Sullivan, Conservation Biologist

Beth Pratt, California Director, National Wildlife Federation

Tom Gillespie, Professor, Dept. of Geography, UCLA

Travis Longcore, Science Director, The Urban Wildlands Group

Martyn Lenoble, Certified Interpretive Guide & Wilderness Instructor

Benny Jacobs-Schwartz, Birding & Wildlife Expert, BIRDS by BIJS

Carla Rohde Robinson, Independent Environmental Educator & Captive Animal Care Specialist

Miriam Seger, Board Member, Project Bobcat  

The following businesses, organizations, and individuals are invaluable to CLAW's operations.  We are incredibly grateful for their support. 

Daniela Barbani, Artist
Cathy Weiss, Artist
Runyon Canyon Apparel
Raven + Crow Studio
Bailee DesRocher, Artist
Mind Fruit Studios
Molly Tuttle Design 
Advance Your Vision
Susan Swihart Photography

 

In memoriam

Wake Up and Smell the Habitat
In memory of Skip Haynes

Sometimes, mid-morning, when the ground’s still cool,
A fresh and friendly light sifts through the laurel
We’ve come to know as sumac, with its floral
Clusters and apple-scented leaves that fill
The canyon with the one-and-only fragrance
Of coastal chaparral that, regularly,
By nature, must go up in flames. 

                                                         Here walks
A certain minstrel who, as song makers
Before him did, found inspiration in
This storied canyon’s groovy coexistence
With peace and love and music of the folk.  

Perhaps he’s singing as he walks, his tread
And tune heard only by coyote pups
Burrowed beside their mom deep in the shade
Of live oaks and black walnuts.  Unalarmed,
They know it is their brother passing by.

His unmistaken Windy City accent,
His will, quixotic and cantankerous,
This mustached troubadour is welcomed here—
Protector of the native habitat,
Canyon defender of the open space
Against the unsustainable, unnatural
Greeds and grabs that seem to just keep coming.

Last night, we stood beneath the dimming stars.
A meteor streaked over, quietly falling
Across the sky behind the sycamores,
And one coyote kept on calling, calling.  

                                                                  --Leslie Monsour