"An endangered wolf went in search of a mate. The border wall blocked him"

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BYDOUGLAS MAIN

PUBLISHED JANUARY 21, 2022

8 MIN READ

In late 2021 an endangered Mexican gray wolf set out on an epic journey.
Known as Mr. Goodbar, the male had months earlier left his pack in eastern Arizona in search of his own territory and a mate. He headed south and east, through the Chihuahuan Desert, a vast, biodiverse expanse of grasslands and shrublands interspersed with mountain ranges and valleys.
The lanky canine, sporting a mix of silvery brown fur and not yet two years old, passed by the outskirts of Las Cruces, New Mexico, on November 22. The land is wide open and speckled with creosote, yucca, and cacti. Before him were distant peaks, including now extinct volcanoes and craters of the East Potrillo Mountains, the southern tip of which nearly reaches the Mexican border. Guided by instinct through the ancient territory of his kind, he headed that direction.
But he soon found himself at a perplexing impasse: The U.S.-Mexico border. Just one year prior, the land was open, except for a short vehicle barrier, a type of low porous fence meant to stop cars and trucks from illegal crossings. But now he found it blocked by a 30-foot-high wall, composed of massive steel beams separated by four-inch gaps, admitting only the tiniest of animals. (Learn more: Arizona’s border wall will include openings too small for many animals.)

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Most of New Mexico’s border is now flanked by this fence, built from 2018 to 2020 under Donald Trump’s administration, a fact lost on Mr. Goodbar, who simply kept moving west. In all, he spent nearly five days migrating along the wall, sometimes briefly switching directions, presumably trying to head south around the obstacle. Eventually, about 23 miles west of where he encountered it, he gave up and headed back north.
The wolf’s path, tracked by a GPS collar affixed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is among the first bits of concrete proof that the wall alters the movement of free-ranging wildlife, says Michael Robinson, a wolf advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Arizona.
“I wasn’t surprised that it happened, because we’d predicted it,” Robinson says. “But I was bummed out.”
The travails of Mr. Goodbar confirm what conservationists and scientists have been warning about for years: That movements of all large animals will be disrupted by the border wall. That includes not just wolves but endangered Sonoran pronghorn, jaguars, ocelots, and bighorn sheep, and more common species such as mountain lions, bobcats, mule deer, and many more.

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Overt border wall construction has ceased, though Customs and Border Protection announced on December 20 that it will be “closing small gaps” in the wall, though what that entails is unclear. Several environmental and tribal groups have sued the federal government to stop construction, attempts which have mostly failed.

Lonely journey

Mr. Goodbar is now in Gila National Forest, near where he started his journey. It’s unknown if he’ll strike out again for new territory or try to establish a place near his home range.
In 2017, two wolves crossed into the United States from Mexico. One passed without issue across the border in nearly the exact spot that Mr. Goodbar tried and failed to get through. Another was Mr. Goodbar’s mother: The female made her way north near Douglas, Arizona, past San Bernardino Valley, a world hotspot for bee diversity, which is also now blocked by new wall. She was captured in Arizona based on complaints from a rancher and gave birth in captivity to Mr. Goodbar at Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas, which gave the wolf his name. 

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Conservationists and scientists urge more action to address the plight of borderland animals like these wolves, emphasizing that the wall seriously fragments populations and blocks ancient migration routes. “This is an event that I believe needs a lot more attention,” Traphagen says. “This is just the beginning.”
Robinson once loved visiting the area where Mr. Goodbar tried to pass, loping in the footsteps of countless animals present and past.
“It’s a sublime landscape, affecting, full of life,” he says. But the 30-foot barrier cut through the landscape changed his experience.
“It breaks my heart to go down to the wall,” he says.

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