Trump's 'wall' will be good at stopping the flow of... wildlife

President Trump has made it official. He signed an executive order to jumpstart construction of a U.S. - Mexico border wall. If he gets it built the "very large" wall would stretch 3,200 kilometres along the southern borders of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

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This is all part of Trump's pledge to strengthen border security, but the very notion of this wall has many wildlife biologists upset. They say it could have a huge negative effect on biodiversity in the borderlands. There are already about 1,200 kilometres of barriers in place, which were put there under former President George W. Bush. Dr. Jesse Lasky, a biologist from Penn State University, has studied which species along the current barriers would be most at risk. 

Additional Links:

• Conservation biogeography of the US-Mexico border: a transcontinental risk assessment of barriers to animal dispersal
• Conservation on International Boundaries: The Impact of Security Barriers on Selected Terrestrial Mammals in Four Protected Areas in Arizona, USA