Episode 183: The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing – Beth Pratt on Reaching the Finish Line
September 11, 2026
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Beth Pratt, California regional executive director with the National Wildlife Federation. Photo by Alisha Jucevic.
Summary
Fourteen years in the making, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over Southern California’s ten-lane Highway 101 is finally nearing completion. In this episode of the Rewilding Earth Podcast, Beth Pratt, California regional executive director with the National Wildlife Federation and founder of The Wildlife Crossing Fund, sits down with host Jack Humphrey to talk about what it really takes to pull off a monumental conservation feat in the modern-day United States.
A tireless champion, Beth shares the emotional reality of reaching the finish line, the enduring legacy of mountain lion P-22, and why this wildlife bridge is far more than simple conveyance. From engineering sound and light baffles with more than 300,000 daily vehicles passing below to cultivating a million hyper-local seeds, the details of bringing this crossing to life sets a new global benchmark for habitat fidelity. The project proves that with stubborn persistence and scientific rigor, we can successfully rewild our most fractured landscapes.
Photo courtesy Beth Pratt / NWF
Talking Points
- Reality of the Home Stretch: What it feels like to reach the end of a grueling 14-year campaign marked by personal sacrifice, skeletal staffing, and navigating everything from high-level politics to ground-level project management.
- Living Legacy of P-22: How one solitary mountain lion trapped in Griffith Park took the abstract concept of genetic fragmentation and turned it into an urgent, global movement for connectivity.
- Beyond Simple Conveyance: Why modern rewilding demands true fidelity to habitat, building living ecosystems with native soils, micro-drainage, and hyper-local flora rather than bare concrete bridges just meant to funnel large game.
- Engineering Silence and Darkness: The intricate science of soundproofing, specialized low-reflective concrete stains, and vegetated barriers designed to trick wildlife into feeling safe over one of the busiest freeways in the world.
- Signs of Life Before the Ribbon Cutting: Early proof of concept on the bridge deck, including barn owls utilizing newly created dark corridors, native lizards, and migrating monarchs and painted lady butterflies laying eggs on site.
- Hidden Crisis of Habitat Fragmentation: Moving beyond direct vehicle collisions to confront the deeper ecological toll of roads, including severe inbreeding among mountain lions, blocked wildfire escape routes, and broken evolutionary pathways.
- Institutional Culture Shifts: How large transportation agencies like Caltrans evolved from skepticism to building dedicated wildlife connectivity divisions, setting precedents for retrofitting global infrastructure.
- Rigorous Post-Construction Monitoring: The scientific framework ahead, including dozens of motion-triggered cameras, collar data, and adaptive management to assess how animals interact with the crossing in the coming years.
Photo by JC Olivera / Getty Images for NWF
Extra Credit
- Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing
- The Wildlife Crossing Fund
- About Beth Pratt
- P-22 the mountain lion (Youtube)
- When mountain lions are neighbors: People and wildlife working it out in California
- The long and winding road to safe highways: Inside the global movement to reconnect habitat (Mongabay)
- Pumas can prevent car crashes (Popular Science)
- Map of wildlife connectivity needs in Southern California
Director of Digital Outreach (D.O.D.O.) for The Rewilding Institute
Host and Producer of the Rewilding Earth Podcast
Jack started Rewilding work as Executive Director of Sky Island Alliance in the mid-1990’s, organizing the Sky Island Wildlands Network design, ripping up illegal roads on forest service lands, installing wolf acclimatization pens on Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch & conducting howling surveys to help make way for the final stage of the Lobo reintroduction program in the Southwest.
Through the years, Jack has worked with Dave Foreman and the Rewilding Gang to further Rewilding initiatives and education.