Ridiculous CA Wildlife Bridge Aims to Prevent Inbred Mountain Lions, but Will Be a Wildfire Express Lane – RedState
The story of Gavin Newsom’s $114 million wildlife bridge in Southern California dominated the political debate Wednesday, and for good reason. As of today, its projected cost has doubled and the estimated completion date of “2025” is in the rearview mirror – all to ensure that fewer than two dozen mountain lions can cross over to the other side of the road and mate with a lion with which it is not closely related genetically.
You may have heard that it is a butterfly bridge, but that is not true. In fact, on the LA County Trails site around the bridge, officially known as Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing (WAWC), butterflies are not even mentioned as one of the species that will benefit; The WAWC website focuses on the mountain lion as the “most immediately endangered species.”
“More than two decades of National Park Service studies in the Los Angeles area have shown that roads and development are not only proving deadly to animals attempting to cross, but have also created islands of habitat that can genetically isolate all wildlife, from bobcats to birds to lizards. The most immediately threatened species, the mountain lion, could disappear from the region within our lifetimes.”
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy highlighted the obstacle facing the big, bad highway in a press release:
“The highway (US 101) is a formidable and virtually impenetrable barrier to many wildlife species, including mountain lions, bobcats, gray foxes, coyotes, and mule deer that inhabit and travel between these two mountain ranges. For mountain lions in particular, the consequences of this restriction are increased inbreeding and territorial fighting, as well as very low genetic diversity, in the Santa Monica Mountains.”
Unfortunately for families living in the towns around the bridge, who experienced the deadly Woolsey and Palisades fires, the bridge will serve another purpose: as a wildfire expressway. Documentary filmmaker Gabriel Mann said:
Not only are they wasting money that could be used to mitigate fires, but they are also creating a contiguous fuel bed that compromises Firestop 101. https://t.co/HxmEtnMdBX pic.twitter.com/QFUzoL6frw
– Mann Made Cinema (@Hotshot_Movie) March 18, 2026
And, not surprisingly, this is brought to us by the exact same environmental nonprofits and public-private partnerships that allowed Topanga State Park to become a fire trap, the same people who prevented the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) from completely extinguishing the Lachman Fire on January 1, 2025, before it became the Palisades Fire.
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a California government agency and one of the main forces behind the project, owns 75,000 acres of land, comprising “the entire Santa Monica Mountains, Simi Hills, Verdugo Mountains, and significant portions of the Santa Susana and San Gabriel Mountains.” The agency refuses to conduct prescribed burns at any significant level and has a list of so-called endangered plants that it denies heavy equipment access to; for example, the milkvetch factory that was seen in Temescal Gateway Park, which prevented firefighters from bringing in bulldozers and other equipment to completely extinguish the Lachman Fire.
DIVE DEEPER: California’s eco-bureaucracies shut down the Palisades wildfire prevention project in 2019…to save a shrub
And now this milkvetch is planted atop the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, along with other shrubs, trees and flowers that will dry out each year and become fuel for wildfires in a canyon famous for Santa Ana winds.
What could go wrong?
We already know that. Those of us who have lived in this area for decades, myself included, remember the night of November 8-9, 2018, when embers from the Woolsey Fire crossed the 101 at the exact spot where this new death trap bridge is being built. The 101 acts as a natural firebreak, and even though major fires have crossed it, did we really need to install an expressway filled with natural accelerants?
The bridge is right in the center where the Woolsey Fire jumps at 101…..! pic.twitter.com/AQPcbXTInV
— 🇺🇸 MAGA VIKING (@bigbobv67) March 18, 2026
Despite this enormous risk, Beth Pratt, the environmental warrior cited by City Journal in her article on the “butterfly bridge,” thinks it would be “hopeful” for motorists to be stuck in traffic and see a mountain lion right above them on the bridge:
“Someone could be in a rush hour traffic jam, and there could be a mountain lion right on top of them. I think it’s such a hopeful image, and one that inspires me that we can right some of these great wrongs.”
Pratt is also the founder of the nonprofit Wildlife Crossing Fund, which has several WAWC-related officials, including California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, on its board of directors. The Wildlife Crossing Fund received $25 million from the Wallis Annenberg Foundation for its work on WAWC, but we were unable to locate any 990 forms for the organization.
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