Best practices for making a very long URL shorter

[CalamityJane77]

Hi Moz folks!

We are redesigning a website of 30,000+ pages. We are pulling together a spreadsheet for 301 redirects. So basically this: http://www.mywildlifesite.org/site/PageServerpagename=priorities_wildlife_endangered_species_protection#.Ws54SNPwbAw/mexican-spotted-owl

Will direct to here, this is the nav architecture:
https://mywildlifesite.org/wildlife-conservtion/endangered-species-act-protections/endangered-species-list/birds/mexican-spotted-owl

My question is, can I and should I truncate that new destination URL to make it easy for Google to see that the page topic is really the owl, like this:
https://mywildlifesite.org/endangered-species-list/mexican-spotted-owl

Your input is greatly appreciated! Jane

[Casey_Bryan]

Hi James,

I always prefer shorter over longer URLs. They look a lot cleaner which I believe Google likes. However saying that, I don't think there is a preference over one or the other as long as your website structure is SEO friendly.

What are the pros to the longer URL for you?

Cheers,
Casey