FIRST NATIVE PLANTS FOUND HOME AT LARGEST WILDLIFE CROSSING IN LOS ANGELES

The way the city melds with the landscape is what makes Southern California such a desirable location to call home. Amid the mountains, valleys, canyons, and creeks, residences and streets stand out, offering a constant escape from the city's bustle. Unfortunately, this has also resulted in disruptions to local wildlife, whose habitats are being destroyed by roadways and who frequently run the risk of being struck while moving about. This will hopefully be fixed with the completion of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing. The group that created it recently achieved a significant milestone.

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, which will span the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills, 35 miles northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, is presently under construction and is expected to be the largest wildlife crossing in the world. When completed, it will connect the Simi Hills in the Santa Susana range with the Santa Monica Mountains. The last horizontal girders were put in place in May 2024, after construction got underway in April 2022. Workers have started planting around 5,000 native plants on the building as it moves into its last phase of construction.

The National Wildlife Federation's regional executive director, Beth Pratt, told KCLU, "Up until now, the construction has really been about things like the rebar and the concrete, but we're starting to put in what's important for me, which is the nature on top of the roadway." "To begin establishing habitat for wildlife, we placed the soil on (the bridge) earlier this year, and today we're placing the first native plants from the nursery on top."

A team gathered seeds at the crossing to ensure the vegetation complemented the surrounding terrain. "Our nursery team had a lot of work to do," Pratt said. "They began many years ago. They have been cultivating more than a million hyperlocal seeds in our native plant nursery after gathering them from a 5-mile radius. These plants seem to have grown up before me, and today was graduation.

The overpass has been carefully designed to draw in as many species as possible. The goal of this is to improve a one-acre wildlife habitat, which includes mountain lions, bobcats, deer, bats, and birds. Pew estimates that wildlife overpasses can reduce collisions with fauna by as much as 90%; therefore, the project will also make the road safer for drivers. The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing should be completed by the fall of 2026, if all goes as planned.