Ocelots are collateral damage

It's not just mammals that would be affected by fence construction, biologists say. They also point to the Texas indigo snake. Most wildlife tourists to the Rio Grande Valley might doubt the existence of a snake that reaches a length of 8 feet and eats rattlesnakes. But the Texas indigo snake is real. It used to be common in the valley but is now listed as endangered in Texas because of loss of habitat. Proposed security fencing could hinder its access to feeding grounds and water.

New roads would also increase the danger to valley wildlife. From 1983 to 2002, a study done by Texas A&M University found that 10 of the 29 ocelot deaths that occurred in the valley were due to road kills. The border fence would include construction of new roads to reach it, and some versions of the plan include high-speed patrol roads running alongside it. In places, the swath of fence and roads could become 150 yards wide. "Building a 150-foot wide strip of fencing and two roads is going to have a major impact on wildlife," says Ernesto Reyes, an ecology services biologist for Fish and Wildlife in the valley. At the Southmost Preserve, where Najera pointed out the animal tracks, it's easy to recognize an established watering spot. Yet the earthen berm where the security fence would likely be built is just yards away. Animals might have to travel miles out of their way to find a new watering spot. And road kills on improved patrol roadways will increase, Reyes says.

The final design of the fence is crucial. Will it be concrete and wire, or "ornamental," as Chertoff remarked about fencing he had seen in the valley? Will it look like Smuggler's Gulch in California -- a blend of old-fashioned strip mining and security fencing worthy of a supermax prison? Brad Benson, a spokesman for the Secure Border Initiative in Washington, D.C., says no final decisions on design or placement have been made.

Lack of information and conflicting statements by authorities in Washington irritate local residents. In July, Border Patrol agents announced at a local Audubon Society meeting that the style of fencing could be decided by individual property owners. When pressed on that point by valley teacher Scott Nicol, a local Sierra Club member, the agents backed away, saying they had no authority to say what kind of fencing would be acceptable. "So they promise the moon, but they have no authority to keep their promises," Nicol says.

This scenario is familiar to activists who have followed the border fence dispute in Arizona, near the Barry Goldwater military bombing range and the nearby Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. In August 2006, Homeland Security and the Department of Defense announced that a "hybrid" fence with anti-vehicle features that would allow animals to cross would be built. Pygmy owls that live in cactus, Sonoran pronghorn antelope and the occasional jaguar crossing from Mexico are among the wildlife whose corridors would be cut by a wall.

Sean Scully, a Tucson member of the Sierra Club and the Sky Island Alliance, who closely monitors the Arizona wall, said that the local parties, including the military base commander, had agreed on vehicle-barrier fencing that would allow the passage of most wildlife. But Scully contends that in the spring, Homeland Security invoked its power to bypass federal requirements such as environmental impact statements, and announced that the fencing would be "upgraded" to an impenetrable wall, with sheet metal stretching between concrete posts along most of it. "The Border Patrol had never even consulted with Fish and Wildlife," he says. Fish and Wildlife biologists in the valley have voiced the same complaints about lack of consultation.

Chertoff has said -- and Benson reiterated this week -- that Homeland Security will comply with all environmental impact assessments, even though it was given special powers to bypass them because of its critical mission.

Homeland Security argues the Rio Grande fence will deter illegal immigration. Yet the Border Patrol's Rio Grande sector itself has raised questions about whether it would make much of a difference. Its sector office told the Government Accountability Office in 2005 that the rugged geography of the area in the Rio Grande sector, which includes the Lower Valley river corridor and especially the rugged thorn brush country inland from the river, creates its own impenetrable fencing.

"The brush (inland from the river corridor) is so dense with sage, scrub brush and cacti that it has created an inhospitable environment for … smugglers or illegal aliens," the report states. Because there are only two highways leading north from the Lower Valley, the local Border Patrol stated that it could intercept illegal immigration within its existing checkpoints. In fact, from 2000 to 2005, the number of apprehensions reported by the local Border Patrol climbed from 108,000 to 134,000, according to a report by Syracuse University.

Valley residents complain that Washington consultants and officials don't understand what's at stake. Nancy Millar, mayor of the border town of McAllen, points out that nature tourism now brings $34 million annually into the local economy and supports 2,500 jobs. Locals have also grown increasingly suspicious of federal officials. "We have always worked side by side with the Border Patrol," says the Nature Conservancy's Smith about local law enforcement. "They already have keys to all our gates and access to our refuges. The wall changes that dynamic. It isolates. It creates unnecessary friction and a hostile environment for landowners."

Smith adds that he is striving to create a truce with Washington. "This is not a choice between the fence and national security of the U.S. against the animals and the birds," he says. "It's about finding a solution that preserves the ability of animals to move back and forth along their river corridors."

One afternoon in his office at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, where the restored riparian forest looks like it might have when Spanish explorers first saw it, Reyes, the Fish and Wildlife Services biologist, explains that ocelots in the U.S. used to swim across the Rio Grande, and travel back and forth to Mexico. As recently as the 1990s, a pair of breeding ocelots regularly swam across a local shipping channel. But no longer. For seven years, Reyes has worked with his Mexico counterparts on a habitat management plan extending 60 miles on both sides of the border. Now he worries his project will be undermined by the border fence. "If they could build a fence that would let animals cross and keep people out, that would be great," Reyes says. How might that work? He says that building a gap at the bottom of a fence -- slither room -- with a concrete base could let rodents, snakes and small animals pass under. But what about the ocelots and jaguarundis and coyotes? How would they get through to find shelter and new mates? Reyes shrugs his shoulders. "Quien sabe? as they say in South Texas. Who knows?"

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