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...
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...
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...
