Boarder Barrier Will Kill Endangered Species

Total Douche, perhaps realizing he will be a one-term president after his pandemic fiasco, is rushing to build sections of his often promised "wall" to seal off the Mexican border.  On February 13th 31 new border projects were announced amounting to 177 miles of new barriers in areas previously thought to be too rugged or remote. Many of these projects will replace existing barriers, but some new barriers will cross endangered species' habitat such as the San Bernandino Wildlife Refuge and Arizona's Peloncillo Mountains, designated critical jaguar habitat. Only 15,000 jaguars are thought to still exist in North America. In the bootheel of New Mexico, pedestrian fences will replace vehicle barriers, which animals like the Mexican grey wolf can evade, closing off vital resources and mates they need to survive. In Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Cabeza Prieta NWF, the endangered Sonoran pronghorn antelope will face extinction say wildlife experts.  A recovery effort by both the United States and Mexico has succeeded if restoring the population to 1,000, but a barrier impenetrable to antelope bisecting the range will make it impossible for them to survive and reproduce.

map credit: BBC News

Before the Antichrist was installed in office by a rigged election system, there were 654 miles of barrier, 354 miles composed of pedestrian fencing and 300 miles of vehicle barriers.  It is a porous border for both wildlife and illegal immigrants, so it did not pose much of a threat to species survival.  That will change as he imposes his will to build a "tall, powerful, beautiful" barrier on the borderlands.  So far about $9.8 billion in funding has been channeled to his pet project. The money for the barrier has come from previous funding approved by Congress as well as extra cash he has been able to access since he declared a state of emergency. By 2020, Customs and Boarder Patrol expects to have completed 450 miles of a border barrier system, which includes steel-bollard barriers, all-weather roads, lighting, surveillance cameras and other technology.

graphic credit: High Country News

Conservationists and tribes have been fighting these projects without much success.  The building of this ineffective barrier will certainly be touted as an election year triumph of the will by Total Douche.  Obviously the building of even portions of a "wall" is a high level priority for the regime.  Construction has proceed without regard to environmental impacts, under waivers contained in the 2005 Real ID Act to relevant environmental protection laws. The little known "Roosevelt Reservation" established by a 1907 presidential proclamation is a sixty foot strip of federal land running along the border (except Texas), which makes it easier to trump private property rights that may affect barrier construction. Funding has been diverted from the Pentagon's budget under obscure appropriation provisions for military construction projects and counter-narcotics program. In the face of this bureaucratic steamroller, wildlife advocates are left scrambling to obtain base line data on border species before they are blocked from their usual migration and foraging routes.

The Tohono O'Odham nation, whose territory stretches into Mexico, expressed concern that construction may damage cultural and archeological sites.  A burial site lies in the path of the proposed wall.  Tribe representatives say their suggestions for alternatives were ignored by Congress.  A spokesperson from the Center for Biological Diversity told journalists that one of the organization's first demands after Total Douche is out of office is a comprehensive study of how the "wall" has adversely affected wildlife, water, and the land, "to identify which areas we should rip the walls out first.”