The San Pedro River snakes across the border. Photo by Chris Linder; flight courtesy Lighthawk.
Normany style border wall leads to the banks of the San Pedro River. Photo by Miguel Ángel de la Cueva.
Bill Odle points out where drug dealers have cut through the fence. Photo by Ted Wood.
Local landowner John Ladd. Photo by Ted Wood.
The river is home to many species like the great horned owl. Photo by Krista Schlyer.
Star trails over the border wall. Photo by Chris Linder.
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Wildlife Corridor by Krista Schlyer
February 2, 2009
At the edge of San Pedro River cottonwood fingers reach bare and bone white against winter's cobalt sky. A palpable serenity rides the quiet currents of this river corridor reflecting the blue sky and pale fingers of trees, while the Arizona sun warms the chill out of this February morning.
The moment passes when from behind me, photographer Miguel Angel de la Cueva shouts, "Bobcat! Look, on the other side of the river," By the time I look, the cat is gone, but Miguel has seen him crawl under the steel vehicle barrier that stretches a short distance from the river's bank before it transitions into solid wall, made of steel uprights and steel mesh.
These barriers, and all the construction and auto activity that have come with them over the past year, have broad implications for wildlife. Miguel's bobcat illustrates the point well.
Over the past year, this last free flowing river in Arizona, one of the last in the southwest and a critical haven for wildlife, has been the site of massive construction. In January 2008, the Department of Homeland Security pulled its legal trump card and waived the laws a court judge had used to issue a temporary restraining order against construction. From that moment, the DHS began to build a stretch of dozens of miles of impermeable steel wall leading right to the edge of the river from the east and west side.
I was here in summer and fall 2008 and saw the progression of it. In the mornings last summer I saw javelina and jackrabbits at the wall, pacing back and forth before giving up and heading back into the brush. I saw bobcat and deer tracks following the base of the wall and then veering off. And I saw the blond grasslands at the base of the Huachuca Mountains west of the river, when they still had only an old barbed wire fence separating the vast rolling hillsides of Mexico and the US. And in the fall I saw bulldozers and steel beams plowing through all of it, churning up the rocks and flowers I had photographed just months before, and creating more places for wildlife to pace and wonder.
Today, the job is nearly complete, and from my seat at the juncture of the San Pedro and the international boundary, I can see the solid wall stretching into the foothills of the Huachucas.
The short stretch of Normandy style vehicle barrier at the river's floodplain is supposed to keep all this construction from going head to head against the massive flash floods that rage through here in summer. Locals are skeptical this flooding solution will work, but one side benefit is that unlike the many miles to the east and west, this barrier allows at least small creatures like bobcat to go under and continue on their search for food, water, and mates.
But what the low barrier also does, is to create an easiest access point for immigrants and smugglers in the most fragile and critical stretch of conservation land for many miles. This National Riparian Area run by the Bureau of Land Management is recognized worldwide for the habitat it provides for southwestern species of all kinds. And funneling human traffic has already begun to disturb the fragile balance here.
We have seen over the past few days, the river is not the only place where people cross the boarder here, and how the wall is little deterrent. Many people can and do choose to just climb the wall, and others simply cut through. Our hosts Bill Odle and Ellen Logue have showed us places where drug dealers have cut the wall, placed a ramp at the vehicle barrier and driven cars through it. Another local landowner John Ladd, said in just the past week he has had 17 groups of migrants crossing his land by climbing the wall.
These people have seen what so many have said, including the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff: The wall will not stop people.
They have also witnessed that it will stop wildlife and will ignite a human migration corridor through the riparian area that has the potential to destroy this rare wildlife sanctuary.
Any number of people, from locals to wildlife biologists and ecologists could have told the DHS that this would be the outcome. If those who made the decision to put this wall here, had spent even one morning sitting on the bank of the San Pedro where I sit now, and seen the bobcat on the opposite shore ducking under the barbed wire fence that once existed there, the bobcat itself could have conveyed to DHS the folly of its plan.
And importantly, given all the input that was available from science, local people and simple observation, had things been different, our environmental laws could have required DHS to listen. But all bets are off in a world where government no longer has to listen to its own laws.
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