PHOTOGRAPHERS FOCUS ON BORDER WALL: HARM TO WILDLIFE, ENVIRONMENT & PEOPLE

EAST COUNTY MAGAZINE

March 1, 2009 (San Diego) — A team of 10 international nature photographers has just completed a three-week trip from San Diego to Texas, photographing and documenting impacts that the U.S.-Mexican border wall and immigration are having on wildlife, ecology, and landscape across the Southwest. To expedite construction of a 700-mile long border fence from California to Texas, Homeland Security under President George W. Bush’s administration waived all laws, including environmental protections such as the Endangered Species Act.
© Kevin Schafer

“What we learned is it doesn’t stop humans from crossing,” Krista Schlyer, spokesperson for the International League of Conservation Photographers, told East County Magazine, “and it does impact the ecological systems of animals.”


....Schlyer believes the wall is also blocking wildlife migration corridors and that conditions will worsen for wildlife in the future, Public Interest News Service has reported. "The animals need to be able to move to seek out food, water, shelter, and mates. In the border lands, if you put up a wall, certain species aren't going to be able to get to a water source that they've been going to for centuries," said Schlyer, who predicted global warming will increase the wall's negative impact. "As these droughts are increasing in the Southwest and as global warming continues, animals are going to need to move northward in order to be able to continue to survive. And, if there's a wall, they're just not going to be able to do that."

...Some, though not all, of the damage to wildlife could be mitigated if environmental experts were consulted, Schlyer observed. “One of our main points is had the Dept of Homeland Security had to follow environmental laws and consult with Fish & Wildlife and other wildlife scientists, they could have helped them figure out how to do this in least damaging way possible…Now it would be expensive.” But even in areas where the wall has already been constructed, some mitigation is possible, such as cutting holes to allow animal movement, or modifying some structures, she added.

For example, one section of the fence is currently “really dangerous to deer and pronghorns,” the wildlife photographer said. “They could try to jump over it, but there’s barbed wire on the other side. These are like Normandy barriers…steel crosses on uprights angled towards the ground.” Animals trying to leap over the fence could become impaled, she warned. But the group’ss biggest concern is over the impact on large animals, such as bobcats, coyotes, as well as ocelots and jaguars which are already rare in the United States and would be unable to cross the border for water, food, or shelter.

Please view these haunting photos - ECM is the first publisher in CA to document this remarkable story:http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/?q=467_border_photography


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:hi:

I don't think they'd run a story about environmental destruction.

Be sure to visit the photo group's website (link is in the story); there are many more wonderful photos there.

The Fence is harmful and ineffective!