Published June 24, 2008 05:08PM
Tough day to be a little-big cat in the Southern U.S.
Not only are they puny, evicted, and rare enough to be protected, but with a Supreme Court decision, two species of carnivorous felines – the ocelot and the jaguarundi – have to cross the equivalent of an Army obstacle course before they can get any lovin’.
In what’s got to be a cruel quirk of evolution and environment, some members of the two species already paddle across the Rio Grande River, which separates Mexico from the U.S., in order to mate. With the Supreme Court’s June 23 pro-border-fence decision, the cats will now be separated by a huge freaking wall.
The pro-animal folks tried to stop it, as pointed out in this Associated Press story:
“Environmentalists have said the fence puts already endangered species such as two types of wild cats–the ocelot and the jaguarundi–in even more danger. The fence would prevent them from swimming across the Rio Grande to mate.”
But the Supreme Court wasn’t having it. The border fence is like throwing the bomb in rock-paper-scissors: fence trumps landowners; fence trumps wildlife; fence trumps environmental laws.
The AP reports that fence builders have already run roughshod over about 40 environmental laws. The Supreme Court’s decision upheld that it was within the Homeland Security Secretary’s powers to do so.
So far, the government has erected slightly less than 350 miles of border fence, and plans are in the works to just about double that.–Casey Lyons
Court OKs Border Fence Despite Environmental Worry (Associated Press)