🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 8 Apr 2006 13:09:01 -0700, "Stan de SD"
<standesd_DIGA_NO_A_SPAM@covad.net> wrote:

>Border battle is taking toll on desert's wildlife
>By Julie Cart
>
>Los Angeles Times
>
>CABEZA PRIETA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Ariz. -
>Mountains of trash, recurring fires, despoiled natural springs, vandalized
>historic sites and disappearing wildlife are part of the devastating toll
>that the government's running battle with smugglers and migrants is taking
>on national parks and wildlife refuges along the U.S. border with Mexico.
>
>In southern Arizona, the damage extends to American Indian and private land,
>jeopardizing a broad expanse of the Sonoran Desert.
>
>At Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, 2 � million pounds of garbage is
>scattered through broad valleys and desert arroyos every year, according to
>Roger DiRosa, the refuge manager. Officials with the U.S. Border Patrol say
>the refuge's seven mountain ranges - home to bighorn sheep and a prized
>destination for wilderness hikers - now serve as posts for lookouts who use
>night-vision equipment to track Border Patrol movements. Mountain peaks
>conceal clandestine radio repeating stations. Illegal "ghost roads" carved
>by smugglers and pursuing federal agents crisscross Cabeza Prieta and nearby
>Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
>
>Officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior say they are considering
>giving the Border Patrol control of the hard-hit areas of the refuge and
>park nearest the border.
>
>"We've talked about what kind of swath they would need, how much we would
>let them control, recognizing that you would be sacrificing a small area for
>the greater good," said Larry Parkinson, Interior's deputy assistant
>secretary for law enforcement and security.
>
>On a recent tour of the damage, DiRosa, who manages Cabeza Prieta for the
>U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, steered his truck toward the Growler
>Mountains, making slow headway through what used to be fertile desert
>topsoil. A constant stream of vehicles has pulverized the sand into a fine
>powder that DiRosa and other federal land managers call "moon dust."
>
>There is only one official road in Cabeza Prieta's 860,000 acres, and this
>wasn't it. The nameless routes, stretching north from the Mexican border,
>are the result of an estimated 1,000 illegal foot crossings a day and
>countless vehicles transporting undocumented migrants, drug runners and
>Border Patrol.
>
>The constant human pressure is threatening to eliminate the area's wildlife.
>The refuge's population of the endangered Sonoran pronghorn, a deerlike
>creature, had fallen to 21 - down from 179 in 1992 - and the species was
>headed for extinction before a captive-breeding program was established in
>2004.
>
>Cabeza Prieta has 400 plant species and 300 types of wildlife, including
>ringtail cats, kit foxes, bighorn sheep, javelina, badgers, bobcats, mule
>deer, desert tortoises, 24 snake species, 11 bat species and 212 bird
>species.
>
>
>
>
>It's only a matter of time, officials say, before these animals' home is
>rendered uninhabitable.
>
>Federal officials describe the effects of massive trespass as "staggering"
>and warn of dire repercussions.
>
>East of Organ Pipe, residents of the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation
>recently removed more than 7,000 abandoned vehicles.
>
>Wendy Glenn, whose family runs a cattle ranch near Douglas, described the
>harm done to livestock and wildlife.
>
>"There are at least two semi [tractor-truck] loads of trash in the canyon
>behind us, and there are probably seven canyons like that," she said. "Our
>cattle eat the trash. Little animals stick their heads in bean cans and walk
>around with the cans on their muzzle until they die. Our neighbor had a cow
>in a corral - it was having a problem calving. They came back in the morning
>to check on it, and two illegals had killed the calf and were cooking it.
>
>"There's constant harassment of wildlife," Glenn said. "Deer don't feed
>during the night, because there's too many people running around. They need
>to go into the thickets to shade up during the day, but they go in now and
>there's people there, along with trash and fecal matter."
>
>Arizona's border with Mexico, more than 350 miles long, includes six
>national parks, three wildlife refuges, three national monuments, two
>national conservation areas and a national forest. Government scientists
>have documented the most serious damage at Cabeza Prieta and Organ Pipe.
>
>At Organ Pipe, on Cabeza Prieta's eastern border, the National Park Service
>estimates that visitors hiking the park's trails may encounter 200 pounds of
>trash per mile. Wildlife biologists say trash and human waste spread disease
>among animals.
>
>Soil compaction across hundreds of miles of roads and trails has killed
>cactuses' shallow root systems, causing towering saguaro and organ-pipe
>cactuses to topple, taking with them animal food sources and bird nests.
>
>At Organ Pipe, American Indian relics and pioneer ranch buildings have been
>damaged or destroyed, Billings said. The corral from Dos Lomitas Ranch, a
>19th-century site listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is
>being taken apart board by board and the wood used for campfires.
>
>Thirsty border crossers are draining many scarce natural water sources and
>have damaged or destroyed water tanks placed by biologists for bighorn sheep
>and pronghorn. Dripping Springs, a centuries-old desert oasis for pioneers
>and prospectors, now regularly tests positive for high levels of E. coli
>bacteria.
>
>Last year, 3,500 acres burned in Cabeza Prieta, said Mike Coffeen, a Fish
>and Wildlife biologist at the refuge. The previous annual high was 50 acres.
>According to refuge staff, the increase is caused by "come-get-me fires" set
>by undocumented migrants who become lost in the desert.
>
>Preventing damage is complicated by the Border Patrol's virtual immunity
>from laws designed to protect the border environment.
>
>Border Patrol agents pursue illegal immigrants in high-speed chases across
>fragile desert lands. Driving in the area normally would be prohibited by
>the Wilderness Act.
>
>The agency has established camps in wilderness areas, obliterating plants to
>make way for helicopter pads, trailers, fencing, generators and
>high-intensity lights. Since much desert wildlife is nocturnal, the noise
>and lights have driven animals out of their natural habitat.
>
>"What would this be like if the Border Patrol was not here?" DiRosa mused,
>walking around a bullet-ridden white station wagon stuck in the sand at
>Cabeza Prieta. "I'd shut the door, because the refuge would be so damaged
>and compromised. But the Border Patrol is a Catch-22: They protect the
>refuge but damage the wilderness."
>
>The Border Patrol says it now requires environmental sensitivity training
>and mandates that agents who drive through wilderness areas report incidents
>to refuge or park managers.
>
>"We've come a long ways," said Ron Colburn, the Border Patrol's chief patrol
>agent for the agency's Yuma sector. "It has been an evolution in the
>cultures of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists and Border Patrol
>personnel. We were both operating in the same area but had recognizably
>different missions. We didn't see our missions joining."
>
>Now they do, Colburn said, citing a pending national agreement between the
>Border Patrol and several federal land- and wildlife-management agencies
>that seeks to reduce conflict and spell out how to operate in sensitive
>habitat.
>
>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002916276_mexborder07.html

These mestizo mongrels are like a horde of locusts. Build that border
fence.

Will
>