Fence seen as peril to animal pathways along border

By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 5, 2007

TIJUANA – U.S. plans to expand and fortify fencing along the southwest border will harm animal species and key ecosystems shared by the United States and Mexico, scholars and environmentalists from both countries said yesterday.

The beefed-up barricades will cut off natural cross-border corridors for endangered species, such as the jaguar, black bear and puma, according to participants of a two-day meeting in Tijuana held at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, or COLEF, a Mexican government think tank.

“There will be a barrier dividing what is actually a continuum of ecosystems,” said Rurik List, a conservation biologist at the Mexican National Autonomous University, or UNAM.

“Animals that now can pass beneath or above the fence “won't be able to pass from one side to another,” he said.