US-Mexico Border Fence Impacts Borderlands Environment

WINTERHAVEN, CA - OCTOBER 08: An official south-facing sign cautions north-bound illegal immigrants of dangers in the desert trek adding that it is not worth the risk, along the US-Mexico border where no fence divides the two nations near the Imperial Dunes on October 8, 2006 west of Winterhaven, California. The warning includes heat, rugged terrain, rattlesnakes, lack of drinking water, and the risk of drowning in the All American Canal which parallels the border a short distance to the north.. US Fish and Wildlife Service wardens and environmentalists warn that a proposed plan by US lawmakers to construct 700 miles of double fencing along the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border in an attempt to wall-out illegal immigrants would also harm rare wildlife. Scores of species from cactus-pollinating insects that would fly around the fence lights instead pollinating cacti; many birds that migrate by starlight in the darkness of the desert wilderness would be confused; and large mammals such as onetime US-resident jaguars, Mexican wolves, Sonoran pronghorn antelope, and desert bighorn sheep would be blocked from migrating across the international border, from California to Texas. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)