The Wall

This would probably belong in the conservation forum, if it still existed.
I’m guessing this could turn ugly and get locked, if the mods see fit to do such or delete it, I fully understand, but I’ve got to try; I’m going to try to limit myself to facts and keep ranting and rhetoric to a minimum.
I retired 3 years ago come January, so this is our 4th winter in the Lower Rio Grande Valley - and likely our last.  Hidalgo Co is one of Texas’ poorest, and last year brought in almost $500M of tourist money, I dare say mainly ecotourism.  
While “the Wall” remains largely unfunded, a few bucks (by gov’t standards), are there - and guess where they’re going to be put to use?
Santa Ana NWR was granted a temporary reprieve by the courts, I believe because it’s Federal.
Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, TX’s oldest, will be devastated.  Hundreds of acres of riparian habitat and 300 year old mesquites, ebonys, a hawk tower, hiking trails, photo/viewing blinds, home to javelinas, bobcats, coyotes, ocelots, (not “officially” there, but I’ve seen one,) home to many bird species found only in VERY limited areas in the US will be inaccessible if not destroyed.  All that will remain will be a parking lot, an acre or two of butterfly gardens, and the visitor center.
A mile up the road, the privately owned, 100 acre National Butterfly Center will meet the same fate.  2/3 of this, including a recent planting of 100s (1,000?) Asclepius plants for migrating Monarchs, a pond with a blind, and Rio Grande access will be cut off, if not destroyed.  The remaining acreage will be impacted not only by the wall itself, but it’s effect on migration.  It’s not just butterflies here, either.  This park often attracts birds such as Anis, Gray Hawks, Audubon’s, Hooded, and Altamira Orioles, Olive Sparrows, and more.
The courts have OKd the disregarding of about a dozen Federal Acts re: clean water, endangered species, etc, in the name of “National Security.”  Various groups, included the Girl Scouts, regularly camp in these areas - so threatening!
Also to be impacted are a privately owned RV park and restaurant and a hundred + year old mission/church.
Groundbreaking is scheduled to begin in Feb.
FYI.

I saw a story about that a few weeks ago on tv and just wished some city dwellers could simply understand how things worked in the real world. There is no concept in the minds of some politicians and city dwellers(not all, of course) of what life is like for people who live and love the outdoor lifestyle. I sometimes feel like if they could only spend a week getting to know the beauty of the outdoors and its’ creatures, they would think with open minds. In the southwest, we benefit a lot from open borders for wildlife, especially for some rare and endangered species, e. g., jaguars, ocelots, Mexican Gray wolves, Coues whitetail deer and other native species, as well. The amount of money that is proposed on a “wall” that will do no good regarding its’ supposed purpose, could be productively spend on better things. It will never work on the things it is said to help prevent. Propaganda is a powerful tool and people have to think logically and not be so vulnerable to garbage!!!
For more info, there are a lot of stories if you google this topic:

news story about south texas wall and its effects

Joe

Not only do so many have absolutely no appreciation for anything that is not humanly-designed, they have never been educated in the concept that we are not the sole consideration of this earths ecosystems, but merely a part of it. I have a PowerPoint program I give to grade-school children (and adults) that features an expensive automobile. I show them several different parts from simple (fan belt) to complex (air conditioner compressor, radio) and ask them if they are smart enough to tell me that which parts, if removed, will allow the car to still get you to the store and back. Most don’t pick the fan belt. Then I show a car with hood up and steam boiling from it because of a broken fan belt. Then I ask how many of us are smart enough to decide which species are not important to functioning ecosystem.
The wall won’t keep people, drugs, or other contraband out because someone will figure a way to circumvent it. But it will surely destroy ecosystems and interchange between terrestrial wildlife species. Unfortunately, we will deserve everything we get.

Here’s a link to what I referenced above:

South Texas Effects

Joe

SantaFeJoe wrote:Here’s a link to what I referenced above:

South Texas Effects

Joe

Your link took me to a whole page of Google search results (not just your intended piece) - maybe even more eye opening for the blissfully (or willfully) ignorant.  Not that anything will influence the latter.

Here’s another link to pertinent articles:

Border Animals

Joe

Making these areas inaccessible will probably save them. Look at all the areas destroyed by the huge increase in tourism. Most of our national parks are being inundated and damaged by the "selfie" generation. Many photographers will not give image locations because of the threat from the hordes. So build the wall to save these places. And at the same time, save the US from illegal immigration.

This thread should NEVER have been started here. There are political forums elsewhere for these types of discussions.

Nothing so far has been political except for your reply!

What you propose reminds me of what a Japanese soldier once told a Bataan POW who was imprisoned along with my dad after the Bataan Death March. The Japanese soldier was asked what he thought of Americans as jungle fighters. His reply was “Americans no good jungle fighters. American remove the jungle.” Destroyed habitat=no more animals/birds/butterflies/tourists.

Joe

Public access natural areas such as these are precious resources for everyone, right, left, center, or unaffiliated; to lose them, for any reason, is a tragedy.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Craig,

EGrav wrote:Making these areas inaccessible will probably save them. Look at all the areas destroyed by the huge increase in tourism. Most of our national parks are being inundated and damaged by the "selfie" generation. Many photographers will not give image locations because of the threat from the hordes. So build the wall to save these places. And at the same time, save the US from illegal immigration.

This thread should NEVER have been started here. There are political forums elsewhere for these types of discussions.

These areas will be more inaccessible to wildlife than they will be inaccessible to people. As noted elsewhere in this thread, critical wildlife habitat will be destroyed and migration corridors for wildlife blocked. It is not like, say, Chernobyl or the DMZ in Korea where human access is limited and the area is left alone to the benefit of wildlife (radiation in the former notwithstanding).

There will plenty of human access along the wall, none of it good for wildlife. There will be the construction of the wall itself and then bright lights at night and the vehicles of US border patrols, the clearing of vegetation along the wall to ease detection of any person crossing it etc etc. All of this will disturb wildlife far more than photographers by far.

Regardless of whether the wall stems illegal immigration (doubtful), it will definitely cause huge ecological devastation in ways that we may not even be able to fully anticipate. You can't just divide a continent in half with a barrier without causing such destruction. Species that need to move north to adapt to climate change will be blocked by the wall and die out at least south of the border. Species with transboundary populations will effectively become two separate populations cut off from each other. The results of that will be one big experiment in evolution - will the two separate populations eventually become separate species? At the very least, US populations of things like jaguars that occur in small numbers bolstered by immigration of animals from Mexico will just disappear from the US.

There will be sad and poignant events like everything from salamanders to javalinas reaching the wall and then walking along it and dying as they find nowhere to get across.

There will be significant implications for things like water flow. An impermeable concrete wall will essentially act as a big dam preventing natural drainage which will cause floods/droughts depending on the lay of the land. Not to mention the huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions from the concrete that wall construction would require. https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... al-damage/

It is going to be far easier for an enterprising person to scale the wall that it will be for wildlife, water and other natural things that should and must be allowed transboundary access. Regardless of where you stand on human immigration, the border wall is an ecological disaster in the making and needs to be stopped.

Check out the work of International League of Conservation Photographer's Krista Schlyer who has documents the significant ecological impacts of the partial wall that is already in place along the border  https://kristaschlyer.com/borderlands-2/ and https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/pro ... index.html

Thanks for posting that, Roberta. I picked up this link off the second link above:

http://bainbridge.today/2018/10/16/all- ... -wildlife/

It’s pretty interesting, as well.

This is a clickable link to the third one you posted:

https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/pro ... index.html

And clickable link to the first one you posted above:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trumps-wall-could-cause-serious-environmental-damage/

Joe

SantaFeJoe wrote:Nothing so far has been political except for your reply!

What you propose reminds me of what a Japanese soldier once told a Bataan POW who was imprisoned along with my dad after the Bataan Death March. The Japanese soldier was asked what he thought of Americans as jungle fighters. His reply was “Americans no good jungle fighters. American remove the jungle.” Destroyed habitat=no more animals/birds/butterflies/tourists.

Joe

I'm surprised that there are nature photographers out there that don't understand the difference between political compromise and environmental destruction.  I wonder if EGrav would consider a hurricane, wildfire or earthquake a "political issue".

Hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes are natural phenomenon and cannot be stopped.. Illegal immigration is not a natural process and can be stopped. The compromise here is that there will be some environmental effects of the wall. A necessary evil to protect the country.

"A country without borders is not a country."
Carlos Beruff

Enough wasted bandwidth.....

EGrav wrote:Enough wasted bandwidth.....

Hey Earl
Just like the subject of global warming, you want to bail without studying the facts. I bet you didn’t even read the links posted by Roberta above and see the images attached on those links. There’s plenty to learn if your mind is open to facts and reality. False info doesn’t get anybody anywhere. When I presented a fact to you on the following link, you never responded regarding a false claim you made. You bailed before you considered reality.

https://www.naturescapes.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=252353

At least, please read those links and see how non-political the facts regarding the environmental consequences of the wall are. The very subjects we love to photograph are highly affected by this “security project”.

Joe

The amount of money wasted on 'defense' in this country is staggering. And morally, ethically and intellectually disgusting. We could have free health care, end homelessness, child hunger and educate the US and Mexico with the money wasted on these political fabrications.  History will not judge us well.  "A Plague on both your houses." -Mercutio

Think of the disruption for wildlife when the US/Canada wall is built to keep out illegal aliens, not only from Canada:

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/nor ... immigrants

Terrorists Entering from Canada

(Sarcasm)

The sad part is that wildlife, especially endangered species, are being totally ignored as a reason to rethink the wall. One of the most beautiful Desert Bighorn Sheep images I have ever seen was taken on the border of Mexico and the US. There are also very large and beautiful Pronghorns there and the Jaguars, Ocelots and other cats will be disrupted in their travels in a major way. Habitat is being decimated on a long term basis in a very fragile ecosystem that may never recover.

Joe

EGrav wrote:Hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes are natural phenomenon and cannot be stopped.. Illegal immigration is not a natural process and can be stopped. The compromise here is that there will be some environmental effects of the wall. A necessary evil to protect the country.

"A country without borders is not a country."
Carlos Beruff

Enough wasted bandwidth.....

Current intensities and frequencies of hurricanes and wildfires are directly linked to climate change which is human-caused. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... al-warming

https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/s ... Bgav9tKgqw 

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/ ... ons/117198

For these reasons among many others (including economic ones), humans need to curtail climate change/greenhouse gas emmissions ASAP, within 10-12 years according to the IPCC. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -un-report

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/envi ... emissions/

A crucial US government report says basically the same thing.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-clim ... SKCN1NS19D

(And of course, many wildfires, while fueled by climate change, are initially ignited by people tossing out cigarette butts, leaving campfires unattended etc.)

If you are concerned about too much immigration, you should be fighting to stop climate change because one of the consequences of climate change will be a rising tide of refugees seeking safety against rising sea levels, drought, food and water shortages etc etc.

Fighting climate change will be more effective than a border wall.

As for earthquakes, not all are natural phenomena that cannot be stopped. Some are related to fracking which is totally under human control.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/frac ... -1.4492762

Of course, ending fracking will be part of fighting climate change.


Roberta Olenick
Vancouver, BC
www.neverspook.com

To answer one of your questions, the wall is not being put up on the border in many places but inland from the actual border. The Rio Grande can meander quite a bit also.

archfotos wrote:First I believe we (USA) should be increasing our lands dedicated to parks and wilderness and I'm not getting into this thread for a political debate just asking questions.

First how is a state park losing it's hiking trails if a border wall is put up?  That sounds like the state park had trails going out of it's area?  Second how is a wall going to stop creatures that have wings?

I guess I ask this because we have superhighways throughout our country where animals are already divided.  I just returned from visiting the folks(MT) and didn't see a single elk for an entire month (that has never been the case) but the truck traffic has increased ten fold - I literally couldn't believe the truck traffic and while I'm sure an elk could still get across there are plenty of examples of roads in California and the East where animals can not.

Another question, how were the animals effected by the Great Wall of China?

I use to live near a wilderness area that had a lot of conterversity because the Air Force was using the land as flyover on their way to bomb practice - the one side was up in arms because the noise was effecting the animals (so they claimed)  I feel the animals were more protected because those areas were not made into vacation subdivisions.

It seems to me our presence is more of the problem.  it also seems to me instead of the two sides discussing and working through the problems such as designing in ways for animals to cross both sides act like children pouting with no compromise.

Personally I think the Dems screwed up not turning the wall into the biggest solar project for clean energy.

p.s.  please take my post as genuine questions I don't care about the politics 

Re: The trails:
The wall is not going to be right on the Rio Grande (the border); it’s going to be built on a levee that is near the park entrance, leaving the VAST majority of the park land inaccessible.  Likewise, much private property, (ranches, churches, even homes, restaurants, and an RV park,)  will be “behind” the wall and seized through eminent domain.

Re: Winged creatures:
1) A lot of the creatures that will be affected do not have wings.
2) Much of the habitat to be destroyed by machine access, the wall itself, and the 150’ area (maybe 300?  I don’t know if it will be on both sides,) to be clear cut as an easily observable buffer zone is habitat that is very scarce and vital to these species.
3) The effects on drainage and flooding remain to be seen.
4) A significant number of flying species remain surprisingly close to the ground.

Jeff
To give you an idea of how the wall will affect trails, access, etc. read this:

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/07/30 ... hrough-it/

The  drawing/rendering at the beginning of this article will give you an idea of how it will look:

https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Border-Patrol-reveals-where-border-wall-funding-12794957.php

Here’s another map that shows how far the wall would be from the Rio Grande in many places:

https://www.texasobserver.org/map-trump-border-wall-locations-texas/

A large number of Texas tortoises were already drowned by retained flood waters which they could not escape.

I’ll respond further later.

Joe