Builders contracted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are installing roughly 50 \u201cdoggie doors\u201d in sections of the US-Mexico border wall along Arizona and California.<\/p>\n
And, as if on cue, wildlife experts<\/a> are up in arms.<\/p>\n They argue the openings \u2014 about the size of an 8-by-10-inch piece of paper \u2014 are too small and will prevent larger animals from moving in their natural migratory patterns while also disrupting ecosystems. Experts fret population declines and even starvation.<\/p>\n The openings are meant to allow animals, such as the pig-like javelina, to pass through the border wall, but advocates were critical, claiming the spaces were too small. Sky Island Alliance \/ Wildlands Network<\/p>\n Animals like skunks, badgers, foxes, opossums, weasels, rabbits, snakes, and desert tortoises can get through. But larger creatures \u2014 including mountain lions, jaguars, deer, and bighorn sheep \u2014 will be affected by their inability to move to the other side, according to National Geographic<\/a> Magazine.<\/p>\n They\u2019re also concerned about the low number of \u201cdoors\u201d for such a long, sprawling fence.<\/p>\n The southern US border with Mexico is roughly 1,933 miles long, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the tip of South Texas. Some 700 miles already have fencing in place, according to CNN<\/a>, and the rest are undergoing the lengthy process of being contracted and built.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has got to be an obscene joke,\u201d said Laiken Jordahl, an advocate for public lands and wildlife with the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity<\/a>, bemoaning that only there\u2019s \u201conly fifty of these tiny openings.\u201d<\/p>\n A feline slinks its way through the wall. Sky Island Alliance \/ Wildlands Network<\/p>\n Advocates say there\u2019s not enough doors in the 378-mile long section of the wall along Arizona border. Sky Island Alliance \/ Wildlands Network<\/p>\n Christina Aiello and Miles Traphagen, two of the researchers for Wildlands Network<\/a>, went to the wall to see the conditions up close and came away shaking their heads.<\/p>\n \u201cWe came out to look at the condition of the border where they plan on building a border wall,\u201d Traphagen told KTSM El Paso news in a Border Report<\/a>. \u201cWe can\u2019t simply be throwing away all of our biodiversity and our natural history heritage to solve a problem we could do more constructively, with, you know, overhauling our immigration programs.\u201d<\/p>\n To keep building the wall, the DHS is waiving several environmental laws to expedite the work.<\/p>\n