PVPLC to Open Wildlife Corridor

The Palos Verdes Land Conservancy is adding 96 acres of land in order to restore and preserve the native plants and animals in the Palos Verdes area. 

In a Daily Breeze article published on Aug. 25, conservationist Adrienne Mohan described the project as having “nearly 100 acres of undeveloped land, set aside for conservation, connecting to already-preserved land and creating a corridor for rare and endangered wildlife.” 

The land will help prevent the extinction of species native to Palos Verdes, such as the monarch butterfly. 

“We are just so excited to embark on the protection of this land,” Mohan said, “and to restore it since it’s been so used and degraded over decades, to bring health back to the land and ultimately, to provide habitat for wildlife.”

The wildlife corridor will also aid in shielding the area from development and preserving its beauty.  

“The benefit would be connecting populations back so that they can interact with each other and reproduce with each other,” biology teacher Marie Kuhn said. 

“It’s a way to help biodiversity by increasing the ability to reproduce. Otherwise, you get reproductive isolation, and that could start changing the population, so we want to make sure to bring them back together.” 

Students are also supportive of the project. 

“I think it is great this is happening in order to keep the land natural, overtime, Palos Verdes has become more modernized, and it’s great that this will keep some land natural,” freshman Sarah Huang said. 

The conversation effort is scheduled to begin in late spring of 2023. 

“This project aims to conserve 30% of its natural land and coastal waters by 2030,” governor Gavin Newsom said in an LA Times article published in September. 

According to development director Susan Wilcox, “grazing goats will be brought in, probably in January or February,” in order to clear the land for planting. 

The land cleared by goats will aid in clearing out invasive plants and preventing wildfires that could be started by the highly flammable shrubbery. 

The Palos Verdes Land Conservancy is proud to have already raised a total of 12.6 million dollars, over half of their original goal. 

“We are excited to open in spring of 2023,” Wilcox said.