Last fall, President Bush signed the Secure Fences Act that will provide close to $2 million to build a 700 miles of fence along the US-Mexico border. Environmental and humanitarian activists and other agencies and groups in opposition of the act seem to think the term "fence" is a dire understatement (some compare the notion to the Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall in both physical and political light).
Beyond political and humanitarian debate, one very serious consequence of a fence or wall along the border has been severely overlooked by both Congress and the media: Think of the animals! The truth of the matter is that any sort of blockade on the border will restrict the movement of anything doesn't fly - but even low flying insects and birds (such as the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl) will be threatened by a wall.
Added to the list of endangered species living on the border are the Mexican Grey Wolf, the Peninsular Bighorn Sheep. These are just two out of 30 endangered species living in the Sonoran Desert, 15 of those (including the Bighorn Sheep and the Grey Wolf - and the javelina, ocelot, and Sonoran pronghorn) have habitats intersected by the border. A wall will inhibit animals maneuver their natural habitat as the have for generations. Trails normally trekked for water, food and shelter will be disrupted with a likely fate for that animal. Species existing above the red line will also be affected and many fear that a wall will be all that is takes to make the endangered list double in the next decade.
For further reading that explores the issues of endangered species on the border, look no further than Plenty Magazine and BioOne Online Journal.
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Plenty of us who live on the border are aware of the impact that the wall will have on birds, as well as endangered sonoran pronghorn and ocelots. Congress doesn't want to talk about it, but they are aware of it also. That is the reason that they passed the Real ID Act, which gives DHS Secretary Chertoff the power to waive all laws to build the wall. In California and Arizona he waived the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and a host of other laws. For more information check out the Environmental Impacts page at www.notexasborderwall.com . A group opposed to the border wall, composed mostly of border residents, has formed to oppose it. We know first hand what a wall will do to the Bentsen Rio Grande World Birding Center, the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, and other critical habitat that are in the wall's path. It is vital that people all over the nation contact their congresspersons and urge them to support the Borderlands Conservation and Security Act, which would blunt the worst elements of the Secure Fence Act and Real ID Act.
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