Experts worry what wall may do to wildlife habitat

Brownsville’s eco-tourism may be impacted, as well

BY SARA INÉS CALDERÓN
The Brownsville Herald

No one has really thought of the birds.

Months spent formulating and debating legislation that the U.S. House and Senate have passed with ways to keep people from crossing the border unchecked. None mentions the wildlife that shares the international region.

The House version would build a fence straight through Brownsville, through farmland, back yards, public parks and wildlife refuges, all the way to Laredo. The Senate bill wouldn’t be too different.

Sealing the border with fences may have unintended consequences for the environment, said Jenny Neely of Defenders of Wildlife, a group in Arizona that has been monitoring the damage done to wildlife there.

In Brownsville, the Sabal Palms Audubon Center and Sanctuary could potentially be hit hard by the fences and all-weather access road to be built no more than 50 yards from the border, as proposed by the House measure.

Trash can be picked up, Neely said, but fences can destroy animal species that migrate as a way of life.

Ocelots in this region were the perfect example.

“It’s going to impact the ability of people to bird watch down there,” Neely said of Brownsville and the potential economic impact a fence along the border could have. The damage done in Arizona by Border Patrol activity has been great, she said and is concerned that Brownsville, with the largest wildlife corridor in the nation, will also suffer.

Mike Gonzalez, director of the Brownsville Convention and Visitors Bureau is more optimistic about the future of the city’s tourist industry.

Eco-tourism, such as birding and nature attractions, accounts for 15 percent to 20 percent of the local economy, said Gonzalez. That’s hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

A fence to insulate the city from violence and unchecked migration might not necessarily be a problem, he said.

“Too many of these hits we’re taking are not good,” Gonzalez said, referring to “border scares,” such as narco violence or drug smuggling.

The fence could become its own tourist attraction, Gonzalez suggests, though it might affect Mexican tourists and the ease with which they travel.

Mexican tourism is just as important to Brownsville as eco-tourism, he said, and means big money to the entire Rio Grande Valley. “I’m concerned about how the Mexican national tourists are going to respond to this info. Hopefully, they’ll still come.”

Damage done to wildlife comes from trash and traffic, which both immigrants and the Border Patrol contribute to, but for which neither is fully responsible, Neely said. The real problem is policy, or a lack thereof, that doesn’t seriously try to protect wildlife, she said.

“It’s hard to imagine that they would build a wall across an area that is so important economically,” she said of the Sabal Palms Audubon and Sanctuary, 527 acres of protected land. “There is no way to mitigate the damage done by these walls.”

Specifically, there are types of birds that are particularly attracted to the river that might leave and nocturnal animals that might be affected by lighting and force them out of the area, said E. Lee Zieger, president of the Rio Grande Delta Audubon Society.

A wildlife corridor, that is anywhere from half a mile to 200 feet wide, is also of concern, he said, because it is a protected area. Animals are an excellent gauge for the quality of our environment, Zieger said, and if fences, roads, lights and cameras invaded protected lands, the animals will go elsewhere.

“There are some birds on the river that are very rare to see — that you don’t see anywhere else, (the fence) would definitely limit it,” Zieger, a San Benito native, said.

“Birds fly someplace else. Your ground animals would go even farther inland. That’s what it will boil down to.”

sicalderon@brownsvilleherald.com

Posted on Jun 02, 06 | 12:00 am

Haaooorrrrrsssshhhiiiiittttt!

Pardon me for sneezing..

how the eff* can these people take themselves seriously? ...more importantly, how can anyone else take them seriously? assinine!

Unreal...