The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is a public-private partnership of monumental scope that has leveraged the expertise and leadership of dozens of organizations and institutions to protect and restore wildlife habitats in Southern California. The crossing is currently in construction and is expected to be finished in 2026.
In 2015, the National Wildlife Foundation (NWF) and Caltrans proposed a massive corridor across the 101 freeway in Agoura Hills to provide wildlife with a safe place to cross into other habitats. At the time, the proposed plan was expected to take years to fund and even longer to build. Due to the bridge’s size and cost, its completion would be reliant on donations from the public.
In 2016, Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation took up the call for funds and made a $1 million challenge grant to spur the community and local leaders to donate. The grant provided the necessary test assessments by Caltrans to ensure that the bridge would not cause any environmental impact to the surrounding area.
Thanks to the Annenberg Foundation’s challenge grant, the project received donations from more than 3,000 private, philanthropic, and corporate institutions around the world and helped NWF raise enough money to begin construction – initially in the year 2025.
In 2021, Wallis Annenberg and The Annenberg Foundation accelerated donations with a record breaking $25 million challenge grant to the NWF. The ‘Conservation Challenge Grant’ – currently the largest of its kind – serves as a call to philanthropists to help protect a threatened global biodiversity hotspot in Los Angeles. The funds raised were not only enough to fund construction, but moved up the construction timeline to April 22, 2022 – three years earlier than planned.
Construction is now on its way and when built, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will be the largest wildlife corridor in the world and will restore habitats and an ecosystem that over time has been degraded by human development. The bridge will allow for wildlife to cross freely over the 101 freeway without the threat of death or accidents, and will ensure the survival of many isolated species.
In honor of LA’s beautiful mountain lions like the late Hollywood star, P-22:
