What will a wall do?
I have posted a lot here regarding my thoughts on illegal immigration. I am in the camp that feels “let’s secure the border NOW, and then figure out how to fairly deal with all of those folks that are here, or want to come here”. If people are crossing the border with relative impunity to find jobs, then it stands to reason that it will be just as easy for those who want to do the US harm – from drug smugglers to terrorists.
There is lots of talk about putting up a wall. Some sections have walls now – walls are planned for other sections. There have been concerns raised by several different entities about building a wall on the Arizona border; concerns about a wall’s effect on wildlife. My first thought is what about the effects of 10s of thousands of people traipsing across the desert every year? One only has to visit sites like Desert Invasion or even My Own Blog to see evidence of what is happening to the desert ecosystems.
I found this blog pontificating about the issue, more specifically how it may affect the Sonoran Pronghorn. At first I thought this was more of the “Bush is bad” mantra (sometimes he is, sometimes he isn’t) but it does have some interesting information.
Recently, I asked a wildlife official in Arizona about the migration of the pronghorns and how a border wall would effect their migrations, since they run with lightning speed and slam into walls when panicked.
The official said that the United States does not really want their US Sonoran pronghorns migrating south of the border to Mexico because of the busy traffic on the Mexican highway running along the border to the south. The United States also has some questions about the grazing and adaptation of the US pronghorns, should they elect to give up their US citizenship and join the larger crowd of pronghorns south of the border. (This all had the sound of “No way I’m telling you the truth, because if Homeland Security finds out, I’m finished.”)
This wildlife official said the US Sonoran pronghorns have adapted to the rainfall and grasses here and to their bombing neighbors.
With Cabeza’s 391 plant species and 300 kinds of wildlife, Cabeza is also home to the endangered Lesser long-nosed bats. The Lesser long nosed bats caused a stir around the new non-functional Boeing border spy tower in Arivaca.
With the spy tower’s layers of radar and microwave transmissions, high tech equipment and generator, questions were raised about the effect on the bats’ hunting abilities, since the bats use echolation (bouncing sound) to hunt. The spy tower is being protested as a violation of privacy. At one time there was hope that environmental laws might save the day.
However, the bats, along with the pronghorns and jaguars along the border of Arizona, are now facing the heavy-hand of power that is slam-dunking all environmental laws to construct the US/Mexico border wall.
There’s more disturbing information in the Cabeza literature. Besides Cabeza hosting “a limited desert bighorn sheep hunt,” there’s a note of caution about the live bombs. Cabeza’s information says the military has used this as a gunnery and bombing range since World War II and many types of ordnances remain buried and on the surface.
“You may encounter unexploded ordnance,” Cabeza warns. Visitors are directed not to touch those and report the live bombs to the refuge staff.
Of course, one has to wonder, what does a pronghorn do when it encounters an unexploded bomb.
Wildlife refuges and bombing range hardly seem like good neighbors. However, Arizona seems to like the fraternity.
Farther to the west in Arizona, between Yuma and nowhere, the Yuma Proving Ground is where the military tests missiles and long range weapons. It is right next to another wildlife refuge, the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge.
On the 80-mile stretch between Quartzite and Yuma, the only sign of life is Stone Cabin, (literally a stone cabin) where a food vendor sells buffalo burgers. Outside of Quartzite, there were a few scattered campers, stuck here and there in the creosote bushes. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live there, with no sign of water, electricity or anything else. It looked like the set for a B-rated “end of the world” movie. I was so anxious to get out of that area, that I couldn’t stand the thought of a ten-minute wait for a burger.
“You have to drive through the Proving Ground to get to the wildlife refuge,” I was told, after seeing a military tank with gunnery, painted in murky green camouflage, stopped at a stop sign.
The writer obviously has no clue about things military, and over emphasizes things like airspace, and the presence of a military vehicle. So, the question remains – “What will a wall do to the wildlife?”
I perused the web for some nuggets:
Google turns up tons of sites offering opinions. Especially sites I would classify as “green” and/or “tree-hugging”. My problem is this… as usual, there are lots of reasons why not to do this. I couldn’t find any comments from these groups addressing the damage that is being done NOW. Or what to do about it, instead of a fence.
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptWhat will a wall do? I have posted a lot here regarding my thoughts on illegal immigration. I am in the camp that feels “let’s secure the border NOW, and then figure out how to fairly deal with all of those folks that are here, or want to come here”. If people are crossing the border with relative impunity to find jobs, then it stands to reason that it will be just as easy for those who want to do the US harm – from drug smugglers to terrorists. There is lots of talk about putting up a wall. [...]
November 14th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/210962.php
Refuge land traded for border fence
Buenos Aires to give up 5.8 acres; deal upsets environmental group
The USFWS Region 2 Regional Office staff could have most likely stopped or modified the section of the BANWR fence but chose to trade land instead. The work is progressing on this section of the fence and for a while, some of us thought there might be a chance for a modification of a vehicle barrier and increased surveillance. The BANWR fence will likely be completed this week or soon after.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
More regarding the Buenos Aries NWR section of the border fence:
Near-done border fence stirs critics, defenders
Land swap: best deal possible or bad precedent?
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/212155
November 18th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I think “environmentalists” have no problem piping up about what they don’t want, but no one is offering practical solutions to what is happening NOW. There are a lot of posts on this blog showing foot paths cutting through the deserts, and knee-high garbage.
I’m not saying a fence is the right solution. I’m saying it’s a lot easier to be against something, than to offer solutions.
November 18th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
I posted the following on another blog regarding the border fence in a response from a post by Paratrooper82:
I assume you are former military from the 82nd Airborne. If so, thank you for your service to this great, although perhaps fading, Nation. I am a former military serviceman and I am likely just as upset, or more so, regarding illegal immigration than you are. I am for the death penalty for drug runners and severe penalties for ALL illegal aliens who cross our borders. I do not want their kids in our schools and all of the other myriad social service issues involved. I have no sympathy for illegal immigrants. I am for a strong military presence on the border and I want our troops home protecting our borders and helping our own citizens instead of needlessly dying in Iraq. As a father, I still think that increasing our population through illegal immigration is one of the worst harms to the environment and those reasons are manifold. However, I am strongly opposed to the wall/fence/barricade or whatever term you want to apply to it, also for the environmental and ecological damages it will incur. I am not a liberal, but rather a conservative Republican who views the current immigration policy as a major travesty of justice to law-abiding U.S. citizens. However, as long as neither political party will act, to include reversing/repealing NAFTA, then nothing is going to change, wall, or no wall, except further ecological and economic damage to the United States of America.
Paratrooper82 mentioned the concept of “Good fences make good neighbors”, one of the many poems/parables that are woefully misunderstood, misrepresented, and misstated. I add sections of the poem to illustrate that “Good fences make good neighbors” is not what it should mean to most people (Frost’s original meaning is misconstrued):
Excerpts from ‘Mending Wall’ Robert Frost:
“We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:”
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
I, like most people, get angry when I view the garbage in the photos you posted. I feel sorry for people who live on the border and who are directly affected by illegal immigration and drug running. Cabeza Prieta NWR was one place I first visited in the 1970s for the best stargazing available. I almost accepted a job at the refuge and I am now glad I did not. Illegal immigrants have ruined CPNWR, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and the entire southern Arizona border. Their criminal activity will continue to go unpunished until legal U.S. citizens compel their representatives to take action and we all do our part to consume less of the products that illegals help produce. We all are all responsible for the illegal immigration problem and we are the only ones who might be able to correct the problem, if possible. However, I doubt that we have the will or drive to do so, until it is too late, and that time may have already arrived. The wall/fence is just one more piece of tangible evidence of our collective failures to ensure a fair immigration policy that is environmentally equitable and sound.
November 18th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
This is what a Wall will do.
Deer and the Border Wall:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_LGNNDBj8JmQ/R6uE6VyTthI/AAAAAAAAAA8/bOLixj2AIc4/s1600-h/deer%40wall.jpg
I found this .jpg on another Blog. I do not know if it is authentic, although it appears to be if you compare the shadows.
February 7th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
I’ve seen the pictures of knee-deep garbage and roads carved into the desert, criss-crossing delicate ecosystems. Maybe habitat fragmentation is better than habitat destruction? I don’t know.
Ron – as someone with a law enforcement background, and a wildlife management background – what viable, effective alternatives are out there?
February 7th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Marshall,
Habitat fragmentation is the death knell of wildlife populations. The ultimate requirement of any species’ survival is reproduction and fragmentation severely limits genetic exchange. Habitat destruction is a concern; however, the illegal immigration-caused destruction is miniscule compared with the wall’s fragmentation of wildlife populations. Regardless of the type of habitat destruction, natural or anthropogenic, the land can recover and animal populations can migrate to areas of suitable habitat if they are not fragmented by a wall or other obstacles; however, genetically isolated populations are doomed to fail, especially if those populations are already small in number and therefore close to possible genetic inviability.
You can read from my previous post to this thread that I am firmly against illegal immigration and I want to stop it with strong law enforcement actions, in addition to employer sanctions and a repeal/removal of the NAFTA. Increasing law enforcement (involve the military?) in an ethical, humane, although through a firm and strict manner, is the crux of the problem.
February 7th, 2008 at 11:20 pm