The Mammoth Lakes U.S. 395 Wildlife Crossings Project has taken important steps forward toward becoming a reality recently, according to the Wildlife Crossing Fund, which supports innovative infrastructure systems that reconnect ecosystems disrupted by roadways. Beth Pratt, president and CEO of the Wildlife Crossing Fund, said this week that certain project requirements have been met,...
The Casa Diablo herd of mule deer call the Eastern Sierra Nevada home. They’re migrants. In the spring, after the snow melts, the herd seeks refuge from summertime heat in the high elevations of the mountains. But come fall, the herd moves back down to the high desert to escape the deep snowfall that the Sierra Nevada...
Unhindered by critics who called the $114m project ‘a bridge to nowhere’, a gigantic throughway allowing animals to cross a busy freeway is close to completion. Atop a gigantic wildlife bridge in California this week, butterflies filled the air. A red-tailed hawk sailed above as a slight breeze ruffled the 6,000 native plants, including poppies and...
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 Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing was always going to be a bold experiment—an attempt to stitch back together a landscape long severed by the Ventura (101) Freeway. Now, as the project progresses, it has also become something else: a flashpoint. Critics have seized on rising costs and shifting timelines. Originally pegged at roughly $90 million...
As supporters of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing in Agoura Hills gear up for an Earth Day celebration atop the bridge over the 101 Freeway on April 22—exactly four years since the official groundbreaking—the project has come under fire for delays and cost overruns. Some of the crossing’s backers say the surge of criticism online...
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...
