“The Santa Cruz Mountains are almost like an island,” Bryan Largay, the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County’s Conservation Director, explains. “And islands are where extinctions happen.” But there is hope being generated in places like Rocks Ranch.
The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County’s biggest fundraising campaign ever aims to raise $43 million to protect farmland and wildlife and build new trails.
With a $1 million fundraising goal 85 percent met, the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County has moved to fulfill a key condition of Caltrans' plan to construct a wildlife crossing under Highway 17.
The instinct to roam is key to the mountain lion's evolutionary success. Conservationists hope a wildlife crossing under Highway 17 will make the journey less deadly for the pumas of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The number of deer killed on California highways has doubled in the last year. Looks like mountain lions aren't the only animals that stand to benefit from wildlife bridges and underpasses.