Wildlife in the fast lane

Re “The next commuter lane at the 405 may be for wildlife,” Oct. 10

While driving west from Calgary with a colleague, I noted the gorgeous wildlife bridges that crossed over the Trans-Canada Highway and said I thought it was a great idea to save wildlife from the speeding traffic below.

My colleague informed me that no wild animals used the bridges for one simple reason. When the bridges were opened, predators quickly learned that they could simply lie in wait at either end of the bridges and pick off animals crossing the bridges. The target animals quickly stopped using the bridges.

Don Allen

Laguna Hills

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State Sen. Bob Margett’s (R-Arcadia) remark, “We’ve got to take care of people first,” is disingenuous. We are taking care of people first in everything we do, with little or no regard to the affected animals.

Animals should not have to fight for permission to live because of traffic congestion. But because an argument for their lives doesn’t seem to move many Skirball-area residents, let’s rephrase it this way: Is even $1.4 million too much to try to prevent fatal car crashes involving deer or other animals with no place to cross a freeway?

Ari Solomon

Los Angeles

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I am outraged that shortsighted, arrogant Angelenos are howling over plans to allocate five lousy feet of overpass space so that wild animals have at least a sliver of a chance of survival in this increasingly concrete jungle we call Los Angeles.

In case they haven’t noticed, it’s not man versus nature anymore. We’re all threatened by an ongoing environmental catastrophe that should turn people and animals into allies.

Meanwhile, pick on somebody your own size.

Jane Velez-Mitchell

Marina del Rey