In southern Arizona a border wall is not a vague threat; it’s a reality. Or at least a border fence, a dark, menacing one that I spotted first from an overlook and then from a few hundred yards away.  A fence that people here call “the wall.”

Built to block the flow of humans and contraband, it’s doing a good job of containing animals, too. So Mexican wild turkeys like the one in yesterday’s post are less likely to be up this way now. And the lone male jaguar who’s said to haunt Ramsey Canyon will never find a mate.

The borderlands are rich in animal species that need to cross and recross in order to flourish. The wall has been hard on them. It will be hard on us, too.