DAVID BLACKMON: Don’t Let Newsom’s Butterfly Bridge To Nowhere Kill Effective Animal Conservation

No one can deny that stories about California’s energy and climate looniness never cease to be entertaining, making them a prime topic for mockery. The state’s infamous High Speed Rail system has consumed billions without transporting a single passenger to or from any destination, providing years of fun posts on X, Facebook and Tik-Tok while slamming California taxpayers in the backside.

But a story about a more current bright idea from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has generated a plethora of parody posts in recent days following a report at the City Journal about what some are calling The Butterfly Bridge to Nowhere.

The Newsom administration broke ground in 2022 on the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, a project intended to serve as an overpass for migrating butterflies and roaming cougars across the 10-lane 101 Freeway in Southern California. How the butterflies are going to figure out the bridge even exists remains a bit of a mystery, but migration bridges for major land mammals like elk, mule deer, antelopes, and big horn sheep are a proven and affordable concept when done right. (RELATED: Democrats’ Nightmare Unfolding As Republicans Poised To Crush One-Party Control In Blue State Race)

Projects like this one succeed in places like Banff, Canada, and states like Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming because they’re data-driven (placed at known migration hotspots), fenced to guide animals (again, not effective for butterflies), and monitored long-term. The wildlife-bridge concept clearly works, and years of monitoring proves it saves lives of both animals and human drivers, as well as taxpayer money on avoided crashes.

But, as so often seems to happen in California, this commendable concept quickly fell prey to incompetence and abuse. At the groundbreaking in 2022, Newsom boasted that the project would cost the low-low price of just $54 million. Never mind that similar projects are executed in other states and Canada for $10-$15 million – the Governor sold this price tag as a bargain to the state’s credulous voters and media. But, of course, that already princely price tag wasn’t the full price – it was just the down payment on the real cost to come.

By 2025 the cost had mysteriously ballooned to $92 million. In January, 2026, the Los Angeles Times reported the price tag had inflated to a whopping $114 million, adding that the NGO managing the project was still seeking another $6 million to help with maintenance costs for the bridge, which hangs partially constructed above the 101.

As if this all weren’t wasteful and unintentionally hilarious enough, Newsom cites this unfinished Butterfly Bridge to Nowhere as a role model. Newsom adds that he wants to see 100 more similar projects in the state, citing a study by his loyal bureaucrats at the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans), which claims that “13,000 jobs” are created for every $1 billion spent on these boondoggles.

Can it be mere coincidence that CalTrans is the same agency that has overseen the state’s obscenely wasteful High Speed Rail to Nowhere project?

Nope.

The real success model for how such projects can be executed effectively and affordably was established in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, which has built six animal migration overpasses and 38 underpasses and monitored their effectiveness continuously since 1996. Data collected through the research shows that large mammals – including Grizzly bears, wolves, elk, deer, cougars and moose (but no butterflies) used the crossings more than 185,000 times between 1996–2009. Car collisions with mammals have dropped 80% overall and by 96% related to elk and deer, saving lives of both the mammals and drivers alike.

In Colorado, two overpasses over State Highway 9 resulted in a 90% reduction in crashes, recouping the comparatively paltry $12 million cost via avoided crashes in just five years. Bridges built in Utah, Wyoming, and Washington State have recorded similar successes in animal adoption rates and crash avoidances.

The bottom line: When done properly, these things work.

It is completely appropriate to criticize and lampoon California’s Butterfly Bridge to Nowhere. The bureaucrats and NGOs involved with Newsom in California’s latest boondoggle have richly earned your scorn and mockery, but we should be careful not to let their buffoonery impugn this effective animal conservation tool. Just say “no” to Newsom but keep saying “yes” to animal migration bridges.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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