101 Wildlife Crossing Gets $25M Challenge Grant From Annenberg

LOS ANGELES, CA — Beverly Hills philanthropist Wallis Annenberg, president and CEO of the Annenberg Foundation, is awarding a $25 million challenge grant to the National Wildlife Federation’s #SaveLACougars campaign to build a wildlife crossing at Liberty Canyon, over the 101 Freeway. The National Wildlife Foundation said that this is the largest challenge grant it has ever received.

The grant stipulates that the 210-foot-bridge - the largest of its kind in the world once complete - will need to secure $35 million to unlock the Annenberg grant. So far, the crossing has raised $44 million, and is estimated to cost $87 million. If the project can secure the grant, it will reach its goal, and break ground in November, according to the Annenberg Foundation.

The crossing will span ten lanes of highway and pavement in order to help mountain lions, cougars, and other endangered wildlife cross over and expand their shrinking habitats. The crossing will be covered in nearly an acre of native vegetation, including native oak and willow trees, shrubs and mushrooms to provide wildlife with food, shelter, and water, according to plans released in October.

Credit: Living Habitats LLC/National Wildlife Federation

The project is a collaboration between the NWF, the National Park Service, Caltrans, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, and the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Mountains.

“This incredible conservation challenge grant from Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation - the largest ever received by the National Wildlife Federation - puts us closer to breaking ground this year,” Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said in a statement Friday. “Wallis Annenberg’s grant will protect this global biodiversity hotspot - recognized as one of only 36 biodiversity hotspots worldwide - and ensure that California’s iconic mountain lions and other wildlife can find the food and mates they need to survive by reconnecting the Santa Monica Mountains and the Simi Hills and beyond.”

“We need to move beyond mere conservation, toward a kind of environmental rejuvenation,” said Annenberg, the heiress to a publishing fortune whose name appears on museums, hospitals, and schools all over greater Los Angeles. “Wildlife crossings are powerfully effective at doing just that - restoring ecosystems that have been fractured and disrupted. It’s a way of saying there are solutions to our deepest ecological challenges, and this is the kind of fresh new thinking that will get us there. To me, this is an important local and regional initiative, even a model for the kind of change we need all around the world.”

Over 300,000 cars pass daily through the 101 at the future site of the crossing. The freeway has proved an almost impenetrable barrier to the region’s big cats, who number in the dozens. In September, a mountain lion was killed attempting to cross near Calabasas. The crossing will help mountain lions, bobcats, gray foxes, coyotes, mule deer, and more cross the freeway and essentially double the space of their habitat. Its design will also provide shelter and food, and reduce the impacts of the lights and noise the freeway brings.

A recent viral video shows a number of happy critters successfully crossing a similar structure in Utah.

“Time is running out for these mountain lions, and the National Wildlife Federation is so grateful to the Annenberg Foundation for showing extraordinary leadership to help make this crossing a reality,” said Beth Pratt, the California regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation. “We hope this game-changing gift will inspire other philanthropists and public agencies to step up so we can ensure we break ground in November.”

See also:

Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing Raises $18 Million | Agoura Hills, CA Patch

Mountain Lion Found Dead On 101 Freeway | Calabasas, CA Patch

Plans Released For Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing | Agoura Hills, CA Patch

Wildlife Bridge Over 101 Freeway Gets $5M Donation | Agoura Hills, CA Patch