🛣️ Why are wildlife crossings crucial for animals and humans alike?

The Kid Should See This  • July 30, 2025

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Why are wildlife crossings crucial for animals and humans alike? ➜

🛣️ Philanthropist Wallis Annenberg, who passed on July 28th at the age of 86, transformed LA's cultural and literal landscape. One of her landmark conservation gifts is still taking shape above Highway 101: the world's largest wildlife crossing.

When completed in 2026, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will stretch 210 feet across the freeway and 174 feet wide—a verdant ten to 12-acre overpass specially designed with mycorrhizal fungi harvested from nearby mountains, thousands of native plants and soil that extend adjacent hillsides, and 12-foot vegetated sound walls that help create dark zones for nocturnal crossings, as well as mute the 300,000 cars that rush under the highway below every day.

Roads affect one-fifth of U.S. land, fragmenting habitats into biological islands where animals can't reach new food, mates, or territory. For Santa Monica's mountain lions, this means dangerous inbreeding; without new cats bringing fresh genes, the population faces extinction within decades. But crossings like this one significantly reduce collisions, sometimes by up to 85% to 90%, all while reconnecting entire ecosystems for mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, mule deer, desert cottontails, fence lizards, monarch butterflies, native bats, and more.

🦌 The wildlife crossing video above, made by the Colorado Department of Transportation in 2021, shares five years of successful safe passage for wildlife and motorists alike. I’ve also included some fantastic children’s books about wildlife crossings around the world below. 👇

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📚 Wildlife Crossing Books:

These book images link you to Bookshop.org (except when it’s sold out), which is an easy way to support both independent booksellers and TKSST. You can also find these books at Thrift Books or your local bookstore.

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