Service Area: Greater Los Angeles Area, including Los Angeles and Ventura Counties

The world’s largest wildlife crossing is finally getting plants. Animals are a year away

October 23, 2025

Los Angeles Times Magazine

The world’s largest wildlife crossing is finally getting plants. Animals are a year away

By Jeanette Marantos

  • Published Oct. 22, 2025 3 AM PT

It’s been three years since the crew for the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing Native Plant Nursery set up shop in Calabasas, with dozens of difficult-to-assemble metal tables, a spartan trailer and a million native seeds hand-collected from the surrounding hills.

That’s three years that nursery managers Jewlya (pronounced “Julia”) Samaniego and Jose Campos have nurtured thousands of native plants from seed, despite plenty of rattlesnakes, hordes of pot-gnawing squirrels, the vile smelling essence of cougar pee to repel the squirrels, blistering summers that required twice-a-day watering, even on weekends and holidays, and a couple winters of mud, erosion and endless rain.

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With the 101 Freeway roaring below them, Robert Rock, right, landscape architect for the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, examines a batch of native Santa Barbara milk vetch plants growing on the outer edges of the crossing with Jose Campos, left, and Jewlya Samaniego, co-managers of the project’s native plant nursery. 
(Al Seib / For The Times)

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