Border Wall. Photo: www.daylife.com

In September, a federal judge ruled against a lawsuit brought by a coalition of groups in Texas to halt construction of the border fence between the United States and Mexico. The plaintiffs, including Frontera Audubon Society and Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, are now considering an appeal of that case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In June, the Supreme Court rejected a similar appeal from the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife challenging a decision by Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff to exempt construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall from a number of environmental and cultural laws. Chertoff had issued the waiver in October of 2007 as a means of getting around a federal court decision that had halted the project due to insufficient environmental review. The Supreme Court ruling gives the wall the green light to go ahead.

The border runs along 1,950-miles of frontier land known for its varied terrain and rich biodiversity that is valuable habitat for birds and endangered cats, such as the ocelot and jaguarundi. One-quarter of the U.S.-Mexico border incorporates hundreds of linear miles of National Wildlife Refuge and National Park Service lands, including Big Bend National Park and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

According to a survey by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) of the top ten most endangered U.S. National Wildlife Refuges threatened by political pressure, portions of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, and the Buenos Aires and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuges in Arizona will be negatively impacted by the wall. The Buenos Aires refuge is a grassland landscape surrounded by mountains and inhabited by pronghorns and the rare Masked Bobwhite Quail. Cabeza Prieta is 860,000 acres of desert that is one of the last strongholds of the endangered Sonoran pronghorn, and home to significant breeding populations of Bendire’s and Le Conte’s Thrashers. All three refuges are designated by ABC as Globally Important Bird Areas.

Private reserves will be affected too, including the 527-acre Sabal Palm Audubon Center near Brownsville (which would end up behind the fence and may have to shut down as a result), and the neighboring Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve, owned by The Nature Conservancy. Both sites are ABC-designated Globally Important Bird Areas because of their populations of Buff-bellied Hummingbird, Plain Chachalaca, and Long-billed Thrasher.

Conservationists are concerned that the wall would block a number of desert washes that feed into the San Pedro River and floodplain, affecting habitat for hundreds of breeding, migratory, and wintering bird species. In addition to bird impacts, the wall is considered a threat to native mammals and other wildlife in areas where they are supposed to be protected. It is widely believed by environmentalists that the Supreme Court decision leaves the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security with the power to ignore any and all laws designed to protect the land and its natural resources. For more information about the PEER America’s Most Imperiled Refuges see http://www.peer.org/docs/nwr/08_22_5_imperiled_refuges_rpt.pdf