Border Wall Construction Threatens Arizona’s Last Open Wildlife Corridor

SAN RAFAEL VALLEY, Arizona — Over the past few decades, the Arizona-Mexico border has undergone significant transformation. Vehicle barriers once marked the line. Then, shipping containers were double-stacked along the boundary. Now, the Trump administration has officially broken ground on an additional 27 miles of wall construction intended to stop illegal crossings into the United States.

Last September, crews began blasting rock and installing the 30-foot-high steel bollard barrier across parts of the San Rafael Valley, a high-grassland region in southeastern Arizona. Monitors and local observers estimate that about a mile of wall has already been erected.

That has prompted conservationists to scramble for solutions to protect this critical wildlife corridor, one of the last unobstructed such corridors in Arizona – and one used by some of the state’s most endangered species.