The National Wildlife Federation has announced a $25 million challenge grant from Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation in support of the #SaveLACougars campaign to build a wildlife crossing in the Los Angeles area.

The campaign, which has raised more than $44 million to date, needs to secure an additional $35 million to unlock the Annenberg Challenge Grant and break ground in November. According to NWF, the crossing at Liberty Canyon in the City of Agoura Hills will span more than two hundred feet over ten lanes of US-101 and, when completed, will be the largest wildlife crossing in the world, reconnecting a long-fragmented ecosystem and biodiversity hotspot and helping to protect the endangered mountain lion population that makes its home in the Santa Monica Mountains.

With more than three hundred thousand cars passing through the canyon daily, the 101 is a heavily travelled commuter route that connects Los Angeles and Ventura counties and serves as the primary access route to and from downtown Los Angeles, various residential communities and tourist destinations, and the central California coast. It also is a formidable and virtually impenetrable barrier for many wildlife species, including mountain lions, bobcats, gray foxes, coyotes, and mule deer that inhabit and travel between the Santa Monica Mountains, Simi Hills, and Santa Susana Mountains.

"There's a reason I wanted to support this crossing and issue this challenge: We need to move beyond mere conservation, toward a kind of environmental rejuvenation," said Wallis Annenberg, chair, president, and CEO of the Annenberg Foundation. "Wildlife crossings are powerfully effective at doing just that — restoring ecosystems that have been fractured and disrupted. It's a way of saying, there are solutions to our deepest ecological challenges, and this is the kind of fresh new thinking that will get us there. To me, this is an important local and regional initiative, even a model for the kind of change we need all around the world. I'm enormously proud that California is in the vanguard of this effort, and that our foundation can be a part of it too. Our hope is that a strong state and federal role won't be far behind."