Freeways are a big problem for wild animals. When a freeway splits a habitat, many animals can’t safely travel from one side to the other. “Without a safe and sustainable wildlife crossing, movement between these remaining areas of natural habitat is severely restricted,” reads a statement on the state of California’s official website. “Wildlife within...
AGOURA HILLS, Calif. — It’s the home stretch of a project 14 years in the making, and Beth Pratt of the Wildlife Crossing Fund said she can see the finish line clear as day. “We are cutting the ribbon in 54 days,” she said. “It’s amazing to see this landscape transformed.” Pratt described the Wallis...
Highways weren’t built for animals. That’s starting to change. In 2012, Southern California was besotted with an unlikely celebrity: a telegenic mountain lion who had crossed one of the state’s most perilous freeways, seeking a territory to call his own. Widely deemed “LA’s loneliest lion” and “most eligible bachelor,” the chiseled puma in question, named...
When it opens in December, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will be the largest in the world. Stretched over a ten-lane freeway, it is meant to save the California Mountain Lion population, and to help numerous other species in the area whose habitat has become fragmented by the road. It could also serve as a...
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...
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...
