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Saturday, November 19th, 2022

Fenced In: How the Global Rise of Border Walls Is Stifling Wildlife

Author:     FRED PEARCE
Source:     Yale 360
Publication Date:     NOVEMBER 16, 2022
 Link: Fenced In: How the Global Rise of Border Walls Is Stifling Wildlife
Stephan:   The fear of the "other" and the building of walls by people driven by that fear, with no consideration as to the effect such walls have on the wellbeing of earth's matrix of life is another tragic story of humanity's failure to understand that the fostering of wellbeing of the matrix is the key to our survival. The subject is rarely discussed or even considered, and here is the result.
A young deer along a barbed-wire fence on the Latvian-Russian border. Credit: Wojtek Radwanski / AFP / Getty

Pity the tiny band of lynx in the Polish half of Europe’s most ancient forest. In June, their home, the Białowieża Forest, was cut in half when the Polish government completed construction of a wall on its border with Belarus. The aim was to repel refugees from the Middle East and elsewhere being channeled to the border by the Belarus government. But the 115-mile wall — which towers 18 feet above the forest floor, stretching almost into the canopy above — has imprisoned migrating wildlife too.

The dozen or so lynx holed up on the Polish side of the barrier will no longer be able to hunt, feed, or breed with their more numerous fellows across the border. The wall dividing the 1,200 square-mile forest is expected to increase hunger among the lynx, and by limiting options for mates, decrease their already low genetic diversity.

In a letter sent in January, as work on the wall started, more than 500 wildlife scientists […]

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