If putting migrant children in cages is not cruel enough, would
President Trump give the green light to bulldoze the US National Butterfly
Center?
By: Ringo Bones
The center’s director Marianna Wright compares the site to
Disney’s Fantasia and more than 200 wildlife species, not just butterflies,
make their homes at America’s most diverse sanctuary. But if President Trump
had his way, all of it could be bulldozed to oblivion. On any given day at the
National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, visitors can see more than 60
varieties of butterflies. In the spring and fall, monarch butterflies and other
species can blanket the center’s 100 acres of subtropical bushlands that extend
from the visitor center to the banks of the Rio Grande river, where the
wildlife center and US sovereignty ends.
The Trump administration could now bulldoze the National
Butterfly Center to oblivion in order to build Trump’s so-called border wall
because back in December 2018, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling allowing
the Trump administration to waive 28 federal laws, including the Endangered
Species Act and the Clean Air Act and begin construction on 33 new miles of
border wall in the heart of the valley – and right through the National
Butterfly Center.
According to the National Butterfly Center’s director
Marianna Wright “Environmental tourism contributes more than $450-million to
Hidalgo and Starr counties.” referring to the adjacent counties in the valley. “Many
of the properties people choose to visit to see birds, butterflies and threatened
and endangered species are all going to be behind the border wall. For us, the
economic impact is potentially catastrophic.”
More than 200 species of resident or migrating butterflies
make homes at the butterfly center over the course of the year, including the
vibrant Mexican bluewing, the tiny vicroy’s ministreak and the black
swallowtail which carpets the wild dill at the property with its eggs each
spring. The center opened in 2003 and is the flagship project of the North
American Butterfly Association. Sadly, Trump has expansive powers to construct
the border wall on both public and private land because since 2005, the
Department of Homeland Security has had the power to waive numerous
environmental laws in the name of national security.
