Two wildlife crossings enter design stage with $5.5 million state grant awarded to Mojave Desert Land Trust
The Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT) has announced the beginning of the planning process for two wildlife crossing overpasses on State Route 62 (SR62). The non-profit says the crossings will benefit locals by reducing wildlife and vehicle collisions, and of course benefit the mountain lions, black bear, deer, bighorn sheep and other animals that choose to use the eventual crossings.
The project’s planning phase is being pushed forward with a 5.5 million dollar grant from California’s Wildlife Conservation Board that will be awarded to the MDLT, who is partnering with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Coachella Valley Conservation Commission and the Mojave Desert Resource Conservation District.
That 5.5 million is earmarked for about 65% of the design phase of the project over the next three years, which will include technical studies and engineering work to design the crossing structures along with the plans to encourage wildlife to actually use it once the crossings are complete. The project will also need an environmental review before implementation and construction begin, which will require additional funding.
Wildlife crossings like the ones announced on Thursday are becoming a larger part of the conversation about busy highways that bisect large natural areas. The east-west running State Route 62 does just that between the San Bernardino and Little San Bernardino mountain ranges where two mountain lion populations meet near the highway. Restoring the connectivity between the two ranges could help the biological diversity of the mountain lions and restore natural movement for all flora and fauna in the area. According the the MDLT, wildlife crossings like the two proposed have reduced wildlife-vehicle collisions by up to 90%.
Once completed, the crossings will join other wildlife overpasses such as the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing currently under construction over the 101 freeway in Agoura Hills, California. The 200-foot crossing has similar goals of allowing megafauna like mountain lions safely cross without risking their lives or the motorists who are driving the freeway.
The Mojave Desert Land Trust is headquartered right here in Joshua Tree, California and since their founding in 2006, they say they have protected approximately 125,000 acres of ecologically significant land in the Mojave and Colorado deserts. Their press release goes into more details on the science behind the proposed crossings, the agencies they are partnering with for the project as well as individuals, businesses and institutions that are publicly showing support for project.
