Arizona governor's border war stopped for now

Half of all migratory birds in North America move through the Sky Islands in the Patagonia, Arizona flyway on Sonoita Creek and along the San Pedro River.

Emily Burns, program director with the Sky Islands Alliance, says her group began placing wildlife cameras in the area in 2020, as the Trump administration’s 30-foot steel bollard border wall was going up and severe drought was causing animals to need to travel further to find water and food. Burns says cameras have captures [of] 26 different mammal species, including black bears, mountain lions, javelina and ocelots, but very few instances of migrants crossing. [KJZZ]

Even North Dakota-based Fisher Sand and Gravel conspired with the Trump Organization and its henchman, Steve Bannon to defraud the United States. Fisher Industries is a major campaign contributor to Earth hating Republicans like Arizona's lame duck governor and is being investigated for substandard work on the US/Mexico border. 

A Santa Fe County, New Mexico couple touring the area in 2019 was shocked at the level of Trump era paranoia and was forced to endure multitudinous Border Patrol checkpoints. Now, efforts to undo the damage to jaguar and ocelot habitats including on the Coronado National Forest have begun in earnest while courts sort the fraudsters.

But in October, contractors hired by Gov. Doug Ducey began using bulldozers to widen the road, cranes to stack the containers, and sheet metal to fill in gaps where the ground is too uneven for them to lie flat. A spool of razor wire now runs atop the metal containers in some areas. Federal agencies including the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Reclamation have said the project is happening illegally on federal land, but had not intervened to stop the work on the ground. That changed last week, when the Department of Justice asked a U.S. District Court to order Arizona to stop building and remove the containers. [Fronteras Desk]

Democratic Governor-elect Katie Hobbs is calling the outgoing governor's actions a political stunt.

In a related story, reintroducing jaguars to the American Southwest is gaining momentum.

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