A portion of the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles will be closed for weeks in order to construct the “world’s largest wildlife crossing” bridge.
Starting Monday, Highway 101 will be closed overnight on weekdays in order to construct the bridge over 10 lanes. The bridge will allow wildlife to cross from the Santa Monica Mountains into the Simi Hills of the Santa Susana mountain range. It will also be covered with landscape native to the area in order to blend in for the wildlife.
“These closures are for the safety of the public while crews place girders over the freeway to construct the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, a vegetated bridge across Highway 101 to reconnect wildlife habitat,” the California Department of Transportation said.
An outside group, Save LA Cougars, raised money for the project. Construction of the project began in April 2022 and is expected to be completed in 2025.
Full freeway closures are not expected, according to the project’s website. In 2016, the highway was the nation’s busiest freeway.
The bridge will allow all types of animals, insects, and reptiles to cross over the highway, but it is mainly for the benefit of mountain lions. Mountain lions typically have a range of 150-200 miles, but the highway restricts that, resulting in “inbreeding,” which is dangerous to species and can lead to extinction. Because mountain lions are at the top of the food chain in this area, that could have drastic effects on the entire wildlife population.
“Genetic analyses indicate that lions in the Santa Monica Mountains have among the lowest genetic diversity of any mountain lion population ever documented,” the National Park Service said.
Research in other regions supports the effectiveness of bridges like Los Angeles's latest construction. In Canada, the Banff Wildlife Crossings Project has allowed bears to generate more biodiversity.
“Showing that the black bears and grizzlies using the crossings to traverse the highway are also breeding is a major finding,” said former Montana State University graduate student Michael Sawaya, who studied the effectiveness of Canada's bridge in terms of biodiversity. “While there have been a lot of studies showing that wildlife are using these crossings, this is the first time anyone has shown that animals using the crossings are breeding often enough to ensure that the populations on either side of the highway are not being genetically isolated.”
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In terms of vehicle collisions with wildlife, these bridges are also effective. The Banff Wildlife Crossings Project, constructed in 1996, reduced animal-related collisions by 80%.
Beginning in 2002, the National Park Service began conducting research that supports the need for a wildlife bridge crossing in this part of Southern California. According to one study, mountain lions in the Southern California region are at risk of extinction within 50 years due to inbreeding.
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