Conservationists say new fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border partitions wildlife habitat, limiting the range that animals must have in order to maintain healthy populations.
As Joe Biden prepares to enter the White House on January 20, the outgoing Trump Administration aims to hand him a fait accompli. Across the U.S.-Mexico borderland, federal government contractors are dynamiting, bulldozing and leveling biologically rich and fragile landscapes in their scramble to extend Trump’s border wall, even as the Covid-19 pandemic rages on. “They are building furiously,” says Marianna Treviño-Wright, executive director of the National Butterfly Center nature sanctuary in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, which is flanked by fencing projects. “Where they are building there is endless noise and dust.” Assessing the border scene between California and Texas, Defenders of Wildlife’s Bryan Bird says wall contractors are “going gangbusters” before Biden assumes office. A report issued in late October by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) expressed optimism that the Trump administration would meet the goal it set in 2017 to... [Log in to read more]
