No More Wall

I just discovered David Sibley’s Blog (try to keep in mind I’m new!)…and while I’ve been using his guides for some time I was absolutely tickled to find on his site a different angle regarding Chertoff and that ridiculous wall he’s having built along our boarders. I’d like to quote Mr. Sibley as there is no way I would come up with his eloquent message:

More on Texas Border Wall

Prompted by some good discussion I've read on TexBirds and elsewhere: I want to stress the point
that the danger to birds is not so much the height of the wall, but more the wide swath of habitat
that would be cleared for the wall and service roads. Chachalacas, Pygmy Owls, Green Jays, etc
will fly over a wall, but they're less likely to cross 100 yards of barren gravel. This project might as
well be a 4-lane highway.So let's try to take immigration completely out of the picture for a
moment and imagine that, instead of a wall, the federal government was proposing to build a 4-lane
expressway along the river from Brownsville to Laredo. Wouldn't there be a unified grassroots
uprising against it? What if they revealed that it would cut right through parts of the LRGV Wildlife
Corridor, which has been so carefully patched together and cultivated over the last 20+ years?
And what if there would be no exit or overpass anywhere near the Sabal Palm sanctuary and
other sites, effectively cutting those places off from the existing road system? And, on top of all
that, what if they announced that, in order to speed construction, all environmental review
would be waived? Wouldn't we all be outraged? People may feel conflicted or uncommitted
about the border wall because it is tangled up in hot-button issues of immigration and National
Security. But those issues are irrelevant to the birds. The reality is that the wall (like an expresswa) would be catastrophic for birds and birding in the valley (and what's bad for birding is generally bad for the birds), and we need to speak out to demand that those concerns be addressed. Congress allowed all this to happen, and they can change it, but they need to hear from lots of us. See: No Border Wall for more information.

I have written my state representative and hope you do so as well! If you live in the US, you can find the address of your representative by clicking here. Regarding this post…I have set aside the issue if keeping people in or out of a walled country and am ONLY discussing the matter of what a wall does to wildlife. Thank you.

I have made use of the above website’s banner and Silbey’s writing. I hope this cause and my quotations will mitigate any improprieties. Thanks again.