Life is blooming along the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, the $114 million project in Agoura Hills designed to provide a safe pathway for wildlife looking to traverse man’s intrusion into their habitat. On a recent stroll, Beth Pratt, regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation, pointed out California poppies, white sage and other native...
LOS ANGELES — Things are buzzing at the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing which is already teeming with life. Native plants are in bloom, attracting bees and a small spider. There’s a western fence lizard named Bob that’s made a home up there. And Beth Pratt, who has championed the project since day one, recently spotted...
Right-wing pundits and politicos recently attacked the gargantuan wildlife crossing being constructed over the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills over ballooning costs and delays. A March 18 post in an outlet published by a conservative think tank set the outrage in motion, calling the now $114-million project a “bridge to nowhere” and “jobs program for environmentalists.” The...
The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing — a nearly 1-acre structure expected to reconnect areas used by SoCal’s wild animals — will open to wildlife on Dec. 2 after years of planning and construction. Construction began on Earth Day in 2022. Once completed, the bridge will allow all forms of wildlife to safely cross the busy 101 Freeway in...
The Santa Monica Mountains are home to around 450 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians that roam a range packed with native plant varieties. But cut off by the US 101 freeway, the mountains have become something of a genetic island. “It’s like old royalty,” jokes Beth Pratt, California regional executive director with the...
The giant bridge over US 101 in Agoura Hills should be complete later this year Last week, the newly launched California Post ran an opinion piece headlined “California’s unfinished wildlife ‘bridge to nowhere’ tops $100M.” The authors, both with the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute, dedicated roughly 750 words to attacking the Agoura...
In 2024, the nonprofit National Wildfire Federation began its plan to build a bridge over the 101 freeway in Agoura Hills to help mountain lions and other wildlife facing “genetic isolation” caused by the freeway. The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is expected to be finished this year, but already small creatures are making the bridge their home...
“She never left her cub,” said a Yosemite National Park ranger, heartbroken, after she witnessed a mother bear remain for hours with her lifeless baby who had been hit by a car on a park road in the summer of 2021. adly, dozens of bears are hit, and sometimes killed, on park roads each year. Vehicle strikes...
For a mountain lion, the kindest intervention for a broken leg is often euthanasia. But the cub known as P-121 was getting a second chance. Found in a roadside ditch in the Simi Valley near Los Angeles, he was one of scores of California mountain lions struck by vehicles each year. At only about five...
To the 300,000 drivers who stream through Agoura Hills on the 101 Freeway every day, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing looks relatively unchanged from last summer, except for some leggy native shrubs growing along the outer walls. While activity seems to have halted on what is touted to be the world’s largest wildlife crossing, there’s...
