South Texas Butterfly Sanctuary Threatened By Trump's Border Wall

NPR ^ | December 3, 20185:23 PM ET | Sam Gringlas

[dennisw]

President Trump is pushing for more money to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The debate could come to a head as Congress nears a deadline to fund parts of the government. Some sections of the border already have a wall. And in many areas, building more wall means cutting through private property. In South Texas, NPR's Cristina Cala and Sam Gringlas visited a place where that conflict is already playing out.

SAM GRINGLAS, BYLINE: We're just looking at dozens and dozens of these red and black butterflies.

CHRISTINA CALA, BYLINE: Like a cloud of butterflies - just one right after the other.

GRINGLAS: The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, hugs the banks of the Rio Grande River. It has a visitor center, hiking trails, gardens - all on 100 acres of land at the end of a long dirt road.

MARIANNA TREVINO-WRIGHT: These are queens. And this one right here is a soldier...

CALA: That's Marianna Trevino-Wright, executive director of the sanctuary. She says this part of the Rio Grande Valley has more butterfly species than anywhere in North America.

TREVINO-WRIGHT: Every day I come to work, it's like going on a safari.

GRINGLAS: Right before the midterm elections, the Trump administration announced it had awarded contracts to build six miles of border wall in Hidalgo County, Texas. It will be one of the first new stretches of wall built under President Trump. Trevino-Wright says the wall will be constructed up to a mile back from the river, basically cutting the butterfly sanctuary in half.

TREVINO-WRIGHT: So this is it.

GRINGLAS: So all this land in between here, the river and where we started out by the levee, that's going to maybe be closed off to you.

TREVINO-WRIGHT: It's going to be a no man's land. It's going to be border patrols' enforcement zone. They will clear everything. One agent told me, why would we leave even one bush for someone to hide under?

GRINGLAS: Customs and Border Protection denies that it plans to completely clear-cut the land. It also says that property owners who need access to the land between the river and the wall can have it.

CALA: The Butterfly Center doesn't have a lot of options to stop the law. The federal government can claim private lands for public use through a legal process called eminent domain. The government has used eminent domain many times before to build other stretches of the border while under previous administrations. Trevino-Wright gets that. But she was shocked when last year she found workmen wielding chainsaws, cutting down trees and mowing down brush to survey the land.

[DesertRhino]

Couldn’t the butterflies fly over the wall?

[Smellin Salt]

South Texas and the rest of the country is threatened by the lack of a border wall

[TribalPrincess2U]

Sanctuary ‘cities’ threatened by wall.

Butterflies my ass!

[MagUSNRET]

There is a reason GOD gave the butterfly wings, It can fly over the wall!! Damned bleeding heart liberal knuckleheads!

[FatherofFive]

The butterflies will find a way

[Buckeye McFrog]

Moot. SCOTUS dismissed enviro challenges to the wall the other day.

[GoldenPup]

South Texas Butterfly Sanctuary Threatened By Trump's Border Wall.

🐂💨💩

[BuffaloJack]

How freaking high is this wall that a butterfly can’t fly over it?

[thinden]

Plant more milk thistle

[BookmanTheJanitor]

Put windmills and solar panels on top of the wall and watch liberals heads explode.

[A_Former_Democrat]

So how many butterfly habitats are destroyed by clearing to House all of these illegals?

Hey NPR do a story on that question

[Carriage Hill]

The monarch butterfly or simply monarch is a milkweed butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. Other common names depending on region include milkweed, common tiger, wanderer, and black veined brown. It may be the most familiar North American butterfly, and is considered an iconic pollinator species. Wikipedia Scientific name: Danaus plexippus Order: Lepidoptera Class: Insecta Rank: Species Phylum: Euarthropoda Family: Nymphalidae.

You should see their overwintering/breeding grounds in Mexico.

[G Larry]

1st - They're LYING about the theoretical impacts.

2nd - They already lost their attempt to use environmental impacts to stop the wall.

[Mariner]

What, no Unicorns?

[Pearls Before Swine]

So here’s what to do:

Build the wall everywhere else, funneling the illegals into the butterfly zone. They’ll soon make such a mess of it, the Greenies and Sierra club conservationists behind this complaint will be there defending it!

[blueunicorn6]

This is exactly why we need to build the wall.

These illegal aliens are known butterfly bashers.

I’ve seen them dance across a field murdering hundreds of our winged friends.

Build the wall!

Save a butterfly!

[butlerweave]

but Butterflies are Free , to fly anywhere

[Altura Ct.]

Nevermind that without the border wall our nation is in peril

[shelterguy]

I live in a suburb of Minneapolis within the 494 beltway, which has high walls on either side.

Looking out my window this morning so far I have seen two deer, six turkeys, gobs of birds and squirrels. I see fox and coyotes occasionally. A bald eagle occasionally.

Critters can adapt. I have proof.

[Trump_the_Evil_Left]

Then down into the article they admit the issue has NOTHING to do with birds and butterflies, which can simply fly over the wall (DUH.... who knew):

"TREVINO-WRIGHT: It's not really about the butterflies. The birds and the butterflies can fly over the wall. The issue is the seizure of private property. The issue is the violation of due process. Those are the real issues."

So it's a debate about eminent domain, but if they framed the article that way then they wouldn't have all the Libtard whiners emoting about butterflies and birds.