Snapchat offers virtual experience for wildlife crossing over 101 Freeway as construction continues

AGOURA HILLS, Calif. (KABC) -- Multiple cities throughout Los Angeles will be celebrating the annual Urban Wildlife Week. Plenty of people came out to the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing open house in Agoura Hills Sunday afternoon to learn how to protect and coexist with wildlife.

The open house was to celebrate the wildlife crossing, which is being built over the 101 Freeway, and what it can do for wildlife.

The National Wildlife Foundation and the Annenberg Foundation teamed up with Snap Inc. to provide people with a new augmented reality experience. On the Snapchat app, people were able to see the new bridge and get information on how it will give animals a safe way to get over the 101 Freeway.
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"So it's not just kind of like visualizing it with your imagination, you're able to actually see what the bridge will look like when it's complete," said Jasson Crockett of Snap Inc.

Once in the app, people were able to click and understand the construction plan and learn about the animals benefiting from the project.

Earlier this year, the project broke ground, which means all that hard work from years of advocating and fundraising was worth it. Beth Pratt of the National Wildlife Federation is excited that mountain lions like P-22 will be safer.



"If landscapes aren't connected, they can't get to food, they can't get to mates. With the mountain lions they're inbreeding themselves out of existence," Pratt said.
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Construction of the bridge is estimated to be completed by 2025.



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