That\u2019s a hypothetical that California\u2019s Annenberg crossing, which should open to creaturely traffic in 2026, is prepared to test. Wildlife overpasses are generally funded with scarce public transportation dollars, and their landscaping tends to be relatively spartan. \u201cMost put some dirt or gravel on top and call it a day,\u201d Pratt said. By contrast, the $92 million Annenberg crossing, funded primarily through private donations, will be lushly surfaced in some 5000 native plants\u2014including pollinator-friendly species like buckwheat, penstemon, and milkweed\u2014collected as local seed and raised in an on-site nursery. Its soils will be inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi to ensure those plants flourish; wood and rocks will provide nesting sites for ants and bees. Even the sound-blocking earthen berms that shield wildlife from the freeway\u2019s roar will be carpeted in a matrix of flowering plants that Robert Rock, the landscape architect responsible for designing the overpass\u2019s surface, described as a \u201cpollinator tapestry.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to create enough diversity in the habitat so that we invite insects to extend into this space,\u201d Rock said. \u201cAll of these species are connected to everything that\u2019s above and below them in the food pyramid.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though the Annenberg crossing might be the most thoroughly considered pollinator bridge, it isn\u2019t the first. In 2017, the Clinton Keith Wildlife Crossing<\/a>, an overpass in California\u2019s Riverside County, opened to coyotes, mountain lions, roadrunners, and other critters. The crossing\u2019s location was chosen, in part, to overlap with the range of the Quino checkerspot, an endangered butterfly whose wings are a vivid chessboard of white, black, and orange. Checkerspots have been described as \u201clow-flying flutterers\u201d more likely to bob through traffic than soar over it. \u201cThe overpass will get them to go higher than a road, to align them with the topography,\u201d one biologist said<\/a> not long after the passage opened.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That\u2019s a hypothetical that California\u2019s Annenberg crossing, which should open to creaturely traffic in 2026, is prepared to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[27609,85,46,141,104632,386],"class_list":{"0":"post-178834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-climate-solutions","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-science-nature","13":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}