According to a new Los Angeles Times article, Caltrans projected to break ground on wildlife bridge over 101 Freeway in January 2022, a new wildlife bridge is being built in western Los Angeles County to save an isolated population of mountain lions from extinction.
Estimated to cost around $87 million dollars, the new bridge will be built over an extremely busy 8-lane stretch of freeway that sees over 300,000 cars a day.
When completed, the 200-foot-long, 165-foot-wide wildlife bridge will be the largest of its kind in the world, officials said. The project is being backed by a number of public and private organizations including the California Department of Transportation and the National Wildlife Federation, officials said.
It’s a dream come true for conservationists, who have been working on the project for almost a decade.
This is an unprecedented project that Los Angeles should be incredibly proud of,” said Beth Pratt, regional executive director in California for the National Wildlife Federation who has been working on the project for almost a decade. “Back then it was just an idea.
The bridge, now named the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, is expected to be constructed in phases and officially completed in 2023.
And as the project comes to fruition, its backers say that it will not only set the bar for conservationists and planners in the United States, but it will serve as a model for the world.
The project will set a worldwide model for what is possible in terms of coexistence in urban places between wildlife and humans, Pratt said. The purpose of the bridge is to reverse the effects that fragmented landscapes have had on wildlife, including low genetic diversity and roadkill.
Full Story: Caltrans projected to break ground on wildlife bridge over 101 Freeway in January 2022 by author Laura Anaya-Morga; originally published in the Los Angeles Times on October 9th, 2021.
