California cougars rate $85 million wildlife crossing over Los Angeles freeway

Talk about infrastructure. The big cats of Los Angeles are on the road to getting their own bridge.

The National Wildlife Federation’s Save LA Cougars campaign has received a record-breaking $25 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation to build a 210-foot bridge over a 10-lane highway in the Los Angeles area.

“The wildlife crossing at Liberty Canyon over the 101 Freeway — which will be the largest wildlife crossing in the world — will reconnect a long-fragmented ecosystem, a biodiversity hotspot, and help protect the endangered mountain lion population and other wildlife that make their home in the Santa Monica Mountains,” the wildlife organization said in a press release on Saturday.

With this donation, the campaign has raised over $44 million to date, about halfway to their final goal of $85 million for the wildlife crossing.

The major public and private partnership behind the project includes the National Park Service, the California Department of Transportation, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservatory/ Mountain Recreation and Conservation Authority and the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains.

“It takes a village to save our local cougars — and to build the largest wildlife crossing in the world,” the National Wildlife Federation noted in their mission statement for the project.