While border walls are intended to harm only humans, new scientific evidence indicates that they are harming wildlife as well, Scripps News reported.
What's happening?
The anti-immigrant fervor that seems to have overtaken the American psyche (and also in parts of Europe) over the past several years has manifested itself in real-life border walls. In the United States, the most notable example is the wall project on the southern border that was started by former and future President Donald Trump and continued under President Joe Biden.
Though the intent of this wall is to restrict and capture people attempting to migrate to the United States, scientists are now warning that it, and other projects like it, are also having a negative impact on the migration corridors of native wild animals.
Why are migration corridors important?
"The border wall is essentially an uncontrolled ecological experiment on a continental scale," Myles Traphagen, borderlands program coordinator with Wildlands Network, explained. "It could cut off essential migration routes for a variety of wildlife who have learned generation after generation from their parents and family cohorts where the water is, where the food is, where the prey is. We are dividing continents."
In one tangible example, last summer, over 100 wild animals burned to death during wildfires in south Texas when they were trapped by a stretch of concrete border wall.
What's being done about the wall?
Now that Trump is returning to office, it seems like construction of the border wall will continue apace — although, in fairness, it certainly sounds like that would have happened to some extent regardless of who won.
However, there may be some reprieve for the animals that reside in the region. According to the settlement terms of a lawsuit filed against the Trump Administration by 18 states and two organizations, the Department of Homeland Security will be required to create several large camera-monitored wildlife passages in the wall, according to Scripps News' reporting.
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