The border wall between the US and Mexico is, of course, a barrier designed to prevent human migrants from moving to America while looking for a job, family or haven from violence.
It is also a significant barrier to the wild.
The border wall, the central part of the agenda of President Donald Trump, cuts a rough, unique home of the ecosystem to hundreds of local species, from jaguars and cougars to black bears and deer. These animals often need to move to survive, whether to find a source of water or half.
We know that the wall is impassable for many species, which potentially reduces their chance of survival. However, how exactly the border affects this rich ecosystem, it was largely a mystery.
A new study, among the first of its kind, finally offers some answers – as essentially spying of animals near the border. For research, an ecologist and lead author Ganesh Marin, then a PhD researcher at the University of Arizona, created 85 cameras for a sense of movement in northeastern sonora, Mexico, together and south of the US border in Arizona and New Mexico. During the research, when the animals passed, the cameras began to record.
For about two years, from 2020 to 2022, the cameras filmed hundreds of hours of footage, including more than 21,000 mammal videos, said Marin, a National Geographic researcher and a doctorate in non -profit partners in nature conservation.
“This place is so special because you see these tropical species, such as ocets and jaguars, at the same time like beaver and black bears,” Marin told me earlier this year when I reported Borderland Jaguars.
Some of the records are quite incredible. In this clip, for example, a young cougar or mountain lion makes a fucking sound that he probably calls for his mother.
With the kind assistance of Ganesh Marin
Or see this Jaguar that approaches the camera. This particular cat is known as Bonito. Scientists first discovered this cat in 2020 and can identify it through its markings.
With the kind assistance of Ganesh Marin
Marin’s cameras also discovered another jaguar called Valerio. He has been seen by cameras repeatedly in a protected area known as Cuenka Los Oyos, south of the Sonora border.
With the kind assistance of Ganesh Marin
The camera cameras caught black bears and their cubes …
With the kind assistance of Ganesh Marin
With the kind assistance of Ganesh Marin
… Bobcats and coyotes…
With the kind assistance of Ganesh Marin
With the kind assistance of Ganesh Marin
… and even an ocean, an elusive predatory cat.
With the kind assistance of Ganesh Marin
Analyzing the videos ultimately revealed some important details about wildlife within the borders. Marin discovered that large mammals, such as black bears and deer, as well as some smaller herbivores, spend less time near the border than in other, more distant sections of his studied region. This suggests that these animals avoid borderline infrastructure.
Other species, like Pronghorn, which were seen on the US border, do not appear at all in its cameras. This can be because they have problems with the crossing of a highway, which runs approximately parallel to the Sonora border, according to Marin and his co -author John L. Koprovski, a biologist at the University of Wyoming.
Meanwhile, the smallers ordinary predators such as coyotes and beans looked more tolerant of human activity: they are more likely to use habitats with cattle, cars and roads with dirt, according to the frames.
The study adds to a growing set of studies showing that the border and infrastructure around it violate wild animal communities.
“The amazing wildlife is present within the borders due to binational efforts to protect and restore the flow of life between the two countries,” Marin says in an email. “We should not determine this beautiful region and the beings that wander from the existence of imposed division.”