The Santa Rita Mountains, a chain of forested peaks that rise from the desert southeast of Tucson, Arizona, rank among the Southwest’s premier biodiversity hotspots. The region’s most notable resident is a 160-pound, Mexican-born male jaguar called El Jefe, who was first spotted on American soil in 2011. While El Jefe rules the Santa Ritas, he’ll likely have to return to Mexico to produce an heir. The United States hasn’t hosted a female jaguar since 1963.
For El Jefe and the border’s other wild inhabitants, searching for love is a complicated proposition. The United States shares a 2,000-mile border with its southern neighbor, around 650 miles of which is blocked by fences and vehicle barriers. Though much of the border remains relatively crossable for wildlife, some of the mountainous stretches in the Santa Ritas are too rugged for fencing. But the border’s permeability to animals may not last.
On Jan. 25, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for “the immediate construction” of a border wall to deter illegal immigration. Such a wall was, of course, the central plank in Trump’s campaign, and it remains as inhumane, ineffective and expensive an idea as ever. Mexico is about as likely to pay for it as Trump is to release his tax returns. There is, of course, yet another reason to oppose the Great Wall of Trump: It will be a catastrophe for the natural world.
For decades, biologists have understood the importance of habitat connectivity to conservation. Species, from wolverines to salamanders, require not only protected areas to thrive but also safe passage between them. Wide-ranging elk need to migrate from summer to winter range; isolated animals like El Jefe have to find mates; and secluded populations must mingle in order to avoid inbreeding. Biologists nationwide also now emphasize linkage: Witness the Path of the Pronghorn, America’s first federal migration corridor, or the Forest Service accounting for connectivity in planning rules. E.M. Forster’s injunction to “Only connect!” ruled the zeitgeist – until Trump.
There is copious evidence that suggests Trump’s wall would damage borderlands ecosystems. One 2011 study found that some native species in California have already lost up to 75 percent of their range to border fences. An Arizona camera-trap study found that border infrastructure impeded the movements of cougars and coatis, but failed to have any impact on the movements of human beings. Journalists have reported watching bison trash border fences to reach food and water.
A recent global review reported that barriers “curtail animals’ mobility, fragment populations and cause direct mortality.”
All told, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analysis suggests that Trump’s wall could affect more than 100 threatened or endangered species. Might the Endangered Species Act, America’s toothiest environmental law, pose a stumbling block to this grandiose project? The answer is only perhaps: Section 7 of the ESA requires federal agencies to consult with Fish and Wildlife on projects that could jeopardize endangered species or destroy critical habitat. Yet a 2015 analysis found that Section 7 consultations hadn’t stopped or extensively altered a single project since 2008. The act won’t dent Trump’s wall, especially because the Department of Homeland Security has waived the law in expanding border fences in the past.
It is true that bemoaning Trump’s actions that harm wildlife is a lot like complaining about the Titanic’s house band. His presidency is bringing daily affronts to his fellow homosapiens. He’s signed executive orders that will harm the health of women worldwide, ban certain refugees and leave millions without health care. The wall isn’t even his worst insult to wildlife: His vows to revive coal and withdraw from international treaties stand to doom more species, by accelerating climate change, than any barrier ever could.
Yet the wall is a crisis. It is a towering symbol of Trump’s disdain for science, stewardship and legal process. His hiring freeze will devastate the National Park Service’s ability to preserve precious landscapes, his plans to neuter the Environmental Protection Agency will make our air and water dirtier and his expunging of global warming from the White House website bodes ill for our climate.
What’s more, as Congress lines up to sell federal acres, it’s hard to imagine Trump acting as anything other than a rubber stamp.
Fortunately, cadres of scientists have already taken stands against this benighted attitude – some by vowing to run for public office, others by going rogue on social media. Most promising is the March for Science, an upcoming protest in Washington, D.C., that thousands of scientists have pledged to attend. We can only hope that at least one marcher will be walking for connecting habitats and against the wall.
Ben Goldfarb is a contributing writer to Writers on the Range, the opinion service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is a contributing editor of the magazine.
