More than 1,500 species of flora and fauna will be at risk of extinction if a continuous US-Mexico border wall is built, researchers declared in a report in BioScience yesterday (July 24). Following the call-to-action in the paper, more than 2,700 scientists from close to 50 countries have signed a petition opposing President Donald Trump’s plans to enclose the border.
“These borderlands are a global responsibility,” Rodolfo Dirzo, a professor of biology at Stanford University, says in a statement. “A constellation of Northern temperate and Southern tropical lifeforms and lineages coincide with endemic species, as in few areas of the globe.”
The wall would be an obstacle to resources and free movement of endangered species, such as the Peninsular bighorn sheep and Sonoran pronghorn antelope. Besides disrupting habitats, construction of the wall would also affect humans by altering the ecosystem and obstructing the flow of water. “There’s also an economic ...
