Thread: Animal expert worries that birds won’t be able to fly over the border wall

Animal expert worries that birds won’t be able to fly over the border wall

POSTED AT 10:41 AM ON APRIL 17, 2017 BY JAZZ SHAW

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Our colleague Matt Vespa picked this up at Townhall over the weekend but I still find myself marveling at it today. The prospect of President Trump building a Great Wall on our southern border continues to divide the nation along partisan lines and it seems as if everyone has to weigh in on the subject. And I mean everybody. MSNBC recently ran a segment where biologist and television “animal guy” Jeff Corwin put in his two cents. The wall is a bad idea, you see, because birds and bats might not be able to fly over it.

“It would be an unprecedented environmental catastrophe,” said Corwin to host Craig Melvin.

Melvin began the segments discussing Rep. Raul Graijalva (D-AZ) and the Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit against the federal government over the border enforcement project. In California, the state legislature is considering punishing construction firms that participate in building the wall.

You’ll really have to watch this for yourself. (It’s less than three minutes long.)

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To be fair, Corwin isn’t just talking about flying creatures. He mentions that the Mexican Gray Wolf and the Jaguar inhabit the border region. But they’re not really “migratory” animals, now are they? And the environment isn’t particularly different on either side. But it’s his point about birds and bats which really caught everyone’s attention. Even the highly liberal MSNBC host had to stop him there and ask, “um… couldn’t the birds fly over it?”

The respected animal expert responded by saying that was a “very good question” but then went on to say that many of the birds and bats fly quite low to the ground when seeking food. Pardon me, but this just flies in the face of reality and you would think that Corwin would know better. He has bachelor of science degrees in biology and anthropology as well as a master of science in wildlife and fisheries conservation, specializing in work on bats and snakes.

Most of the plans we’ve seen proposed thus far have the wall at a maximum height of somewhere in the 20 foot range. That’s lower than your average two story house. Have you ever seen any birds (or bats for that matter) that can’t fly over a house when they need to? I don’t see birds crashing into my house either… at least the non-glass parts of it. Large windows are a problem for birds to be sure, but I don’t think the guys designing the wall are working on any large picture windows to improve the view.

And… bats? Seriously? Bats operate on sonar and they don’t even fly into windows. If they need to go over the wall they will somehow manage the feat.

What we’re actually seeing here is an attempt at stalling and cost expansion from the Democrats. The video segment above is introduced with a call from one Democrat to force a full “environmental impact study” before construction begins which will simply run out the clock and add to the total bill. (Amazingly, Democrats began noticing what things cost on January 21st of this year in case you missed it.) In support of that effort, MSNBC is dragging in any “expert” they can find to support this latest initiative. It’s no shock that Corwin answered the call, but his argument is the thing that’s crashing into a wall, not the bats.

http://hotair.com/archives/2017/04/1...tm_campaign=nl

What next?

I support the wall, but there's no question it will affect wildlife. But so does all development, all that urban sprawl, all this population growth, imagine how much habitat has been lost due to illegal and massive legal immigration population growth in the United States.

I would prefer to put manpower on the border which would not interfere with wildlife, but people seem to prefer the wall, and we need one of the other. We can't leave it the way it is and expect to stop illegal immigration into the US.

So unless Cornyn and all the other anti-wall Republicans substitute 40,000 border guards to supplement border agents to secure that border 24/7/365, then they are against the wall because they support illegal immigration and it doesn't have a damn thing to do with the birds or bats or the wolf or anything other wonderful creature.

Judy wrote (excerpt):

I would prefer to put manpower on the border which would not interfere with wildlife, but people seem to prefer the wall, and we need one of the other. We can't leave it the way it is and expect to stop illegal immigration into the US.

Actually we need both.

What does the wall do for you that manpower wouldn't do better? Or do you just like paying twice for the same result?

Wow!!! There must be some really lazy birds along the border...the ones that fly around my house can go WAY over 20 feet!!!

Originally Posted by Judy

What does the wall do for you that manpower wouldn't do better? Or do you just like paying twice for the same result?

I'm not even going to dignify that question with a response.

LOL! That's what people say when they don't have an answer. The wall keeps people out, at least some of them. Manpower keeps people, most of them. People need jobs. People don't interfere with nature. People don't cause flooding or interrupt the lives of the bats and birds and the turtles, wolves, and other wildlife. People can see, people can arrest, people can report, people can do a lot that walls can't do. So why not use people to guard the border? It's cheaper, more effective and more environmental-friendly/

FUND MY WALL OF AMERICANS!! 40,000 strong to guard the border in addition to Border Patrol, call them Border Guards. 20 per mile, 6 on a shift, 3 shifts, with 2 floaters for holidays, vacation and sick leave. Pay them $40,000 a year plus 25% benefits, total package $50,000 a year x 40,000 = $2 billion plus another $1 billion a year for expense, equipment, camping gear, vehicles, weapons and supervision.

$3 billion a year and the best money we'll ever spend.

Originally Posted by avenger

Wow!!! There must be some really lazy birds along the border...the ones that fly around my house can go WAY over 20 feet!!!

The real question, in my opinion is, what migratory bird can't fly over 20 feet. Additionally, I don't see the gray wolf or jaguar on the list of migratory animals I've provided. If it's not a migratory animal or bird, it can live on whichever side of the border it gets caught on.

List of Animals that Migrate, Animal Migration List

• African Elephant: It migrates to find food during the wet and drys seasons.
• American Buffalo: The American Buffalo is the heaviest land animal in North America.
• American Golden Plover: The American Golden Plover is a medium-sized shorebird.
• Arctic Tern: A small bird that flies from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back again each year.
• Basking Shark: A huge filter feeder and the second largest fish.
• Bat: Bats are the only flying mammal. Some bats, like the Red bat, migrate.
• Beluga Whale: A small, white, toothed whale that lives mostly in cold, Arctic waters.
• Birds: Many birds, like the bobolink, the Arctic tern, and the Golden Plover, migrate.
• Blue Shark: A sleek, fast-swimming shark with blue skin.
• Bowhead Whale: A baleen whale rich in blubber.
• Bull Shark: A blunt-nosed, dangerous, gray shark can that live in fresh water rivers and lakes.
• Canada Goose: The Canada goose is a large North American bird that honks.
• Caribou: Caribou are herbivores that live in Arctic regions.
• Cockatoo: Cockatoos are birds with a large, feathery crest and a hooked bill.
• Crab: A crab is an animal with a shell. Many crabs migrate to reproduce.
• Dogfish Shark: A small, very common, relatively harmless shark found worldwide.
• Dolphin: A dolphin is a small, toothed whale, a marine mammal.
• Earthworm: An earthworm is a little animal with a long, soft body and no legs.
• Elephant: There are two types of elephants, the Indian elephant and the African elephant.
• Frog: Frogs are amphibians that migrate back to the pond, marsh, or lake where they hatched as tadpoles, and lay their own eggs there.
• Fruit Bat: Fruit bats are large bats that eat fruits and flowers.
• Hammerhead Shark: Large predators with a hammer-shaped head.
• Gnu: The gnu is a fast-running, herding, grass-eater from eastern Africa.
• Goose: The Canada goose is a large North American bird that honks.
• Gray Whale: A baleen whale that is a bottom feeder; it migrates long distances.
• Great White Shark: An enormous, ferocious predator found worldwide.
• Greenland Shark: A large, slow-swimming shark with glow-in-the-dark eyes.
• Hammerhead Shark: Large predators with a hammer-shaped head.
• Hummingbird: Hummingbirds are tiny birds that eat flower nectar.
• Humpback Whale: A long-flippered baleen whale that sings and frolics in the water.
• Ladybug: Tiny flying insects that eat garden pests. Some ladybugs migrate.
• Mako Shark: Large predators that are the fastest swimming fish!
• Mallard Duck: The Mallard is a common wild duck that is the ancestor of most domestic ducks.
• Manatee: Manatees are gentle, slow-swimming, aquatic mammals.
• Salmon: Salmon are fish that live in the sea and spawn in fresh water.
• Nightingale: A small songbird that sings beautiful, complex songs, often at night.
• Oriole: The Baltimore Oriole is a black and orange bird that eats fruit and nectar.
• Reindeer: Reindeer are herbivores that live in Arctic regions.
• Sea Turtle: Sea turtles are large marine turtles.
• Snow Goose: Snow Geese are migratory birds from North America.
• Swordfish: The swordfish is a large fish with a long, sharp bill.
• Tiger Shark: Large predators found worldwide in warm seas.
• Toad: Toads are amphibians with poison glands. Toads migrate back to the pond, marsh, or lake where they hacthed as tadpoles, and lay their own eggs there.
• Tuna: A large, bony fish that migrates thousands of miles across the oceans.
• Umbrellabird: A bird with a large tuft of feathers on its head.
• Wildebeest: The wildebeest is a fast-running, herding, grass-eater from eastern Africa. Also known as the gnu.
• Zebra: Zebras are hoofed mammals that have black and white stripes.

https://listofeverything.wordpress.c...igration-list/

What he is saying is - the bats, birds don't always fly @ - they hop, walk, low glide & in doing so spread seed thru their droppings etc. And the small amount of grey wolves that are on the endangered list, the one jaguar left don't jump that high. That is how plants, nature is propagated along with wind blown pollens- so a firm solid wall in the wildlife refuge of the Sonoran Desert would cause problems for the eco-system there and everything dependent upon it.

In producing a series of art called Mystical Desert that depicts the mystical qualities, with photos & 3D attachments, the features of our unique SW desert areas - the wildlife, the cactus, unique to that area became a visual reality for me. Due to the absence of man and his buildings, gadgets, artificial lights - only star, sun and moon light, it possesses a mystical quality that was an inspiration for that work.

Perhaps, that desert area, which border patrol did not enter anyway, as a wildlife refuge is not their territory to patrol, could be treated with equipment rather than a solid wall. Have read @ technology that differentiates between man & beast. Also read @ areas where the Rio Grande is used by cattle ranchers and that area will need special treatment also. It has already been discussed, there are areas that would not have a solid wall.

The case of stopping the wall will be narrowed to those special spots & they will need special procedures. It would seem anyway. They would lose the case if they asked for no wall at all along the entire border. Besides, don't count on open borders ryan to fund the wall!