A HUNDRED MILLION HERE AND HUNDRED MILLION THERE, AND SOONER OR LATER, YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT REAL MONEY: California’s unfinished wildlife ‘bridge to nowhere’ tops $100M.

In 2022, California Gov. Gavin Newsom broke ground on the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing (WAWC), a project featuring an overpass for animals atop ten lanes of the 101 Freeway in Southern California.

At the ceremony, Newsom boasted that the state had committed $54 million. He promised to “complete the job within another $10 million,” before seeming to hedge on whether that final sum would do the trick.

Officials projected a 2025 completion date for the overpass, and estimated that the entire project — which includes the bridge and other ancillary developments — would cost $92 million, some of it coming from private philanthropists.

Nearly four years after the ceremony, the bridge is past due and the project some $21 million over budget. What was supposed to be the world’s largest wildlife crossing has become a jobs program for environmentalists, with taxpayers on the hook for what WAWC leader Beth Pratt told us is an overpass “for everything from monarch butterflies to mountain lions.”

Pratt, a cougar-sweater-wearing environmental activist who serves on WAWC’s Partner Leadership Team, is the program’s public face. She is also a regional executive director of the national Wildlife Federation. In 2021, the group received a $25 million grant from “Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation” for the bridge that bears the late philanthropist’s name.

Related: Bridges and Cougars and Butterflies, Oh MY! Chris Rufo Exposes Yet ANOTHER Gavin Newsom Boondoggle. “If you are asking yourself why butterflies could possibly need a bridge, then you are a sane person who is in no way qualified for elected office in California…Now we know why his cringy social media team is so mad at Nick Shirley.”