Locked up: Sabal Palm Audubon Center remains closed

Brownsville Herald
May 1, 2010
by Laura Tillman

When you drive down the pot-hole flecked road leading to the Sabal Palm Audubon Center & Sanctuary, a field of silky green stalks of maturing corn sits to your left, the brown expanse of the U.S.-Mexico border fence stretches out in front.

At the end of the road there’s an opening in the rust-colored fence, which allows vehicles to motor over the levy to a vista of the lush wildlife sanctuary beyond. But when you arrive at the gate for the Sabal Palm Audubon Center itself, there is no moving ahead into the brush.

Instead a stop sign hangs here — and a lock.

Sabal Palm closed in May 2009 for the season with hopes of re-opening that October. But October came and went, and one year after the center initially closed it remains locked up. The center has been unable to secure the funding it needs to pay employees, thanks in part to a decline in donations after the recession began.

Owned by the Audubon Society, Sabal Palm is one of the last two remaining protected groves of sabal palm trees in the country. The other is next door at The Nature Conservancy, a private nature preserve generally closed to the public, which may also end its tenure in the Rio Grande Valley. In the case of The Nature Conservancy, the issue isn’t funding — its liability issues posed by the path of the U.S.-Mexico border fence, which places upwards of 90 percent of its property on the south side of the fence.

At the Sabal Palm Audubon Center, the fence has also raised concerns. Bob Bentson, the vice president of Audubon Texas, said that he didn’t know if the gap at the entrance of the preserve, for example, would be filled with a gate or just more fencing.

A spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers told The Brownsville Herald that a gate would fill the spot.

"New hours of operation," reads a sign on the closed gate of Sabal Palms, hopefully. But then the next line, "the Sanctuary is currently closed," destroys that hope.

Bentson says the Audubon Society is optimistic that it will soon be able to secure funding to re-open the center, though he declined to specify where such money might come from.

"Unfortunately the economy hit us hard," Bentson said.

You can still drive to the entrance of Sabal Palm and, gazing over at the sanctuary, see kiskadees, mockingbirds, lizards, and the famous sabal palms themselves. The shaggy trees have not lost their rough tropical luster. But Bentson says that if and when the center re-opens, it will need some sprucing up.

"She doesn’t have on her Sunday best right now," he said.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/audubon-111662-center-sabal.html

Final stretch of fence could close Southmost Preserve

Brownsville Herald
April 17, 2010
by Laura Tillman

Max Pons sees more wildlife in one day than most people see in months.

On Friday, Pons watched Black-bellied Whistling Ducks as they conducted reconnaissance to find the best place to build a nest.

He saw Altimira Orioles gathering food, walked along a stretch of sunflowers, Texas thistle, prickly poppies, and guinea grass, and kneeled down to pluck a sample of pepper grass as Indigo Buntings whipped through the air.

While many South Texans manage to get out to the area’s wildlife refuges a few days a month or year, Pons considers it a privilege to call The Nature Conservancy Southmost Preserve his workplace and his home for 18 years.

But after a court order granting possession of 8.31 acres of the land to the U.S. government for construction of 1.5 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border fence, Pons’ idyllic home may be no more. About 95 percent of the Nature Conservancy’s property will fall south of the fence, including one of the last two protected Sabal Palm groves in the United States.

As caretaker of the property, Pons’ home will fall behind the fence, along with the conservancy’s nursery.

“The border wall causes several unique damages and problems for the conservancy, including dangers to protected and rare species,” said Laura Huffman, the Texas director of The Nature Conservancy, an international nonprofit organization. “There are also security and access concerns for what will now be on the backside of the wall, including the Nature Conservancy operations and the home of the preserve manager and his family. A decision has not yet been made as to whether or not the Nature Conservancy can continue at this location.”

The stretch of border fence is among the last to be built in Brownsville, along with a half mile of fence in Lincoln Park, according to Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Tara Dunlop. Engineers at the Nature Conservancy site said construction on the fence would start on Monday.

“We’re certainly disappointed,” said John Herron, Texas director of conservation for The Nature Conservancy. “We’re very concerned about how a fence will affect our ability to operate our preserve. I think we understand the concern about security and we certainly want to be supportive. But like any landowner we’re disappointed with the fact that the federal government has chosen to take the land.”

Pons takes care to talk with the Border Patrol agents, engineers, and construction staff who are now a regular presence in what remains his home and workplace. He chats with them about the wildlife, weather patterns, and the path of the fence.
“You’re just the messengers,” Pons said members of the Kiewit crew.

Pons walked along the segment of fence that has already been constructed near The Nature Conservancy property and came upon an old shed about 30 feet from the fence line.

“We were hoping they’d have to tear this shed down,” Pons said jokingly, pointing out the shed. “There’s a big bee population living in there they’d have to contend with.”

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/-111084--.html

Budget, border fence keep S. Texas preserve closed

Associated Press / Houston Chronicle
October 23, 2009

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — A south Texas nature preserve won't reopen as scheduled this fall after it was left in limbo for more than a year by plans to build a border fence.

The Sabal Palm Audubon Center has been a popular destination with bird watchers and home to a rare native stand of Sabal palms along the Rio Grande. The Brownsville Herald reports Friday that the center will remain closed at least through the end of the year.

The border fence, which isolates the preserve between the river and the fence, continues to create uncertainty. However, Audubon Texas Executive Director Bob Benson says the more immediate problem is a lack of funding.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6682764.html

Landowners Win Explanation Of Border Fence Access

Associated Press / CBS
July 31, 2009
by Christopher Sherman

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) ― A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government to clearly tell property owners affected by the fence along the Mexican border how they will be able to access their land.

It has taken weeks for the government to hammer out such an explanation for five landowners east of Brownsville who have been fighting in court for specifics and clearer language.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen told Justice Department lawyers they need to do the same for the approximately 255 other South Texas landowners who have not settled their cases.

"I think the landowners deserve that," Hanen said. If the government is taking their land they should know exactly what is being taken and how they will get to it, he said.

Nearly all of the promised 670 miles of vehicle and pedestrian barriers are complete, but the government has run into stiff resistance in South Texas. While the fence segments in the area run in relatively straight lines, the Rio Grande twists and turns — leaving thousands of acres of land stuck between fence and river.

Friday's status hearing, a step toward trials scheduled for early next year in which juries will decide how much the government should pay landowners, also revealed a significant change by the government as it tries to finish one of the last segments of the fence seven months after it was supposed to be completed.

Until now, the government had purchased for the border fence only strips of land running on the north side of levees that protect the low-lying areas of South Texas from the Rio Grande. But after struggling to sort out access rights for property owners, many of them with commercial farming operations, the government decided it will also condemn the land directly under the levee.

Kimberli Loessin, an attorney for several property owners east of Brownsville, said the government planned to take the land under the levee for the easternmost 13-mile border fence segment. It was unclear if the government planned to condemn the levee land in other areas, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Paxton Warner said the government hoped to begin filing amended papers to condemn land by the end of August.

While Border Patrol and other federal agencies have the right to drive along the top of the levee, they did not own it. That made it impossible to guarantee property owners rights to drive along portions of the levee to access land that was stranded in the no man's land between the fence and the Rio Grande.

http://cbs11tv.com/wireapnewstx/Judge.orders.government.2.1108949.html

Border fence access, compensation questions to be presented in federal court today

Brownsville Herald
July 30, 2009
by Laura B. Martinez

Construction of the border fence has stalled in the most southern parts of Cameron County because of unanswered questions brought to light by affected landowners.

They want to know what land the government is actually seizing from them and how they will gain access to and from their property.

These questions could be answered today in federal court where several landowners and representatives of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will face off again on the battle for the land, including areas deemed "no man’s land."

U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen in May suspended some of the fence’s construction in Cameron County after learning that the landowners were concerned that access to their lands could be cut off and their concerns about the types of gating to be used.

Also in question is what land the government would pay for, including that in front and in back of the fence that some landowners believe would become worthless and hard to sell.

Much of the land is farmland.

Although construction continues on a section that runs east of Brownsville along Oklahoma Road and Highway 4, portions affected by lawsuits remain either untouched or unfinished.

"We felt absolutely compelled to raise these issues with the court and every landowner out there whose property is being taken by the government should do the same," Kimberli Loessin, attorney for several property owners covered by the judge’s order, said in a June 10 e-mail to the Associated Press. "Otherwise, lawsuits move forward, fences get built, and compensation gets determined without the government ever admitting to what it is really taking away from landowners."

Claude R. Knighten, spokesman for U.S. and Customs Border Protection’s Secure Border Initiative in Washington, D.C., said while the lawsuits may have caused some construction delays, reported figures that the delay is costing the government about $57,000 a day are untrue.

The delay costs will be compiled once the construction crews contracted to build the fence turn in their invoices for reimbursements, Knighten said.

In May, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Hu told Hanen that a delay could cost the government $10,000 to $15,000 a day, because the contracts had been awarded and the crews were ready to work, the Associated Press reported.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/questions-100509-access-federal.html

If a Tree Falls in the Valley: The Sabal Palm and the Border Fence

The Nature Conservancy
June 22, 2009
by Clay Carrington

If a rare tree is leveled to make room for the border fence, will anyone care?

The moment the Secure Fence Act (H.R. 6061) was approved in 2006, the most important question associated with the construction of the United States-Mexico border fence ceased to be “why?” and became “where?” The fence — actually a series of intermittent freestanding barriers — is nearly complete, with most of the California, Arizona and New Mexico stages finished.

In West Texas, construction is well underway from the state line east to Fort Hancock, while on the opposite end of the state, building has begun on sections in the Rio Grande Valley. There, amid the resacas and thornscrub of South Texas, the finished fence will eventually trace the slow curves of the Rio Grande River.

More or less.

The border fence doesn’t strictly adhere to the national border — the Rio Grande. In reality, its path veers erratically inland — a straight line that disregards the natural curves and oxbows of an ageless river — creating huge swaths of the United States trapped in a “no man’s land” south of the fence and north of the border. The Nature Conservancy’s Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve stands to be bisected by the fence, leaving nearly three-quarters of the preserve in this no man’s land.

The merits of Southmost Preserve are innumerable:

• Spanning 1,034 acres at the very tip of Texas, the preserve is home to a wealth of threatened and endangered species, including rare birds, frogs and tortoises.
• The land lies under the Central Flyway, one of four principal migratory bird routes in North America, and the preserve’s thick Tamaulipan thornscrub represents a prime wildlife corridor for free-roaming ocelots and jaguarundi.

For years Southmost Preserve has been a haven for scientists and birders enticed by land where, in a single day, dozens of rare animal species can be spotted.

But the real prize at Southmost — the bedrock of its unique habitat and the species that helped earn the preserve the moniker “Jewel of the Rio Grande” — is the rare sabal palm. Once found across much of the lower Gulf Coast, sabal palm forests have all but vanished under the plow. While some scattered trees can be found on private lands in the region, the significant remaining stands of these towering trees are located at Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve, the Sabal Palm Audubon Center and the Lower Rio Grand Valley National Wildlife Refuge. All three of those conservation areas lie in the path of the border fence.

In order to save sabal palms that would otherwise be leveled by construction of the fence, the Conservancy is partnering with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service and Audubon Texas in coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to transplant palms to safe ground, one tree at a time.

The trees, which grow as tall as 65 feet and are up to 100 years old, are being uprooted and hauled to a number of spots, most within a mile of their original location, where they are then carefully replanted.

It’s a massive undertaking and a race against the clock. Each of the approximately 300 trees must be thoroughly trimmed and the root balls need to be unearthed intact to ensure survival. The project, which is already underway, is expected to last through the summer.

The security of our borders is of paramount importance. Since the creation of Southmost Preserve, the Conservancy has worked closely with the U.S. Border Patrol to allow ample access to the property.

Unfortunately, in an attempt to seize the preserve — or at least the narrow strip of land on which the fence would sit — the Department of Homeland Security has opted for litigation over collaboration. Southmost Preserve is now the subject of a condemnation lawsuit that, if successful, would allow construction of the fence and would require the government to pay for only the land on which the barrier sits, regardless of how much property winds up inaccessible, uninhabitable and outside the reach of conservation management.

Despite this harsh reality, the Conservancy, Texas Audubon and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service remain resolute, working throughout the intense heat of the South Texas summer to give hundreds of iconic, historic trees the best chance to survive for future generations of Texans.

And hopefully, if the project is a success, this scramble to protect the last remnants of a once-majestic forests will someday be viewed as the best possible conservation outcome salvaged from a very bad idea.

http://blog.nature.org/2009/06/border-fence-southmost-preserve-sabal-palm-nature-conservancy/

Conservationists say, ‘We'll take the trees, but no thanks to the border fence.'

Brownsville Herald
June 11, 2009
by Laura Tillman

On the outskirts of Brownsville, where subdivisions and strip malls give way to rust-tinted fields of sorghum, two environmental conservation non-profit organizations are welcoming what they call a "small positive in a sea of negative."

About 300 native sabal palm trees are being scooped out of the path of the border fence and transferred to the Nature Conservancy and Sabal Palm Audubon Center in Brownsville. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is moving the trees, the only palm species native to South Texas, off of what is now government-owned property at no cost to the nature centers.

Bob Benson, executive director of Audubon Texas, says his organization is concerned about the environmental impact of the border fence, but that the preservation of these trees is a "bright spot."

"Obviously it's making good out of a bad situation," Benson said.

But while Benson is glad to add trees to the Audubon Center, he has bigger worries.

Recently, several ongoing lawsuits between landowners and the federal government raised the question of whether the government could close planned access gates along the fence in the future. If the answer is yes, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen has said that property owners could argue to a jury that the government would be taking not some but all of their property.

Since the Sabal Palm Audubon Center is slated to be entirely behind the border fence once it is built, the center must have a reliable access gate to remain open to the public.

"We've been acting on good faith that we would have these access gates," Benson said. "We're happy to get the trees, but our main concern is those gates. We have to have access to our property."

Because the sabal palm sanctuary is entirely behind the planned path of the border fence, the organization never had to sell land to the Department of Homeland Security to make way for the path of the border fence.

The ongoing border fence debate has depleted tourism to the sanctuary by about 25 percent, Benson said, and he's concerned once the structure goes up the public might not realize they can still visit. So far, the Sabal Palm Audubon Center has cut back its hours and has closed for the summer months.

The Nature Conservancy, which is close to the sabal palm sanctuary, is waiting for its day in court. State Director Laura Huffman says she is still hoping that the conservancy property could be used as testing ground for invisible fence technology.

"The good news is that these three organizations - the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Nature Conservancy, and the Audubon - are working together to save these trees," Huffman said. "The bad news is that if our property is compromised by a fence, then all the good we've accomplished will be lost."

More than 90 percent of the conservancy's property would be behind the fence if it's built.

On Thursday, mechanized tree spades dug snug six-foot inverted pyramids around the base of sabal palm trees and then removed them.

Then the machine dug out matching holes for the trees and slid them into their new homes. Finally, the corresponding holes were filled with the earth extracted from their new locations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service completes about eight of these transfers daily.

Once the switch is made, the palms stand a high chance of survival, according to Maxwell Pons, the preserve manager at the Nature Conservancy.

Transplanting, he said, often doesn't work because there is too much wiggle room between the plant and surrounding soil. When the plant moves, fragile roots break, and the plant can't connect firmly to the soil. But with the accurate tree-spade method, the trees will integrate well into their new locations.

About 175 of the palms were destined for the 1,000-acre Nature Conservancy preserve. This preserve already has acres of shady sabal palm groves hugging the riverbank.

Pons, the steward of the refuge, has lived on the property for more than 20 years.

"I see more bobcats than immigrants," said Pons, who said he watched a bobcat run along the riverbank earlier that day.

Pons has seen jaguarundi, snakes, rare birds, and even the occasional ocelot on the rambling land that will soon be behind the border fence. The property is replete with history - both environmental and man made. The groves contain 45-foot sabal palms, some more than 100 years old. In one grove, a small shaded cemetery is home to graves more than 200 years old.

"You can't separate the natural history from the cultural history of the area," Huffman said. "When you stand at that cemetery you really get a historical sense of what that landscape really did look like. These ancient majestic trees are part of the beauty of South Texas."

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/trees-98955-border-conservationists.html

Rare palms moved for border fence

San Antonio Express-News
June 10, 2009
by Lynn Brezosky

BROWNSVILLE — Some 300 rare sabal palm trees are being extracted and relocated to save them from being killed for the government's border fence, the Nature Conservancy of Texas said Wednesday.

The trees, some a century old, are among the last remaining from a palm forest that once flourished along the Rio Grande but was felled for farmland and development.

Most of the remaining trees are now under the stewardship of the Nature Conservancy and Audubon Texas. The latter group maintains a 557-acre sanctuary along the fence path.

With funding and manpower supplied by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies, the trees are being replanted to other properties owned by the Nature Conservancy and Audubon, including properties that will end up south of the fence.

“For the time being this will at least provide them with a fighting chance,” Nature Conservancy spokesman Paco Felici said. “The alternative is to cut them down.”

The federal government is funding the undertaking, which Nature Conservancy state director Laura Huffman said was a way to “create as much good out of the situation as possible.”

Litigation is pending concerning the fence's path through Conservancy and Audubon properties, Huffman said.

In the Conservancy's case, 700 of 1,200 acres will be cut off by the fence. Questions regarding access and security on the south side haven't been answered.

Huffman said she feared the on-site caretaker could no longer live in an area severed by the fence, and lack of oversight could open the preserve to tree poachers.

“If we cannot continue to protect the sabal palms and the habitat, then the conservation goals have in effect been compromised,” she said. “Owning the tracts and not being able to protect the species is a problem.”

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/47575847.html

Nature Conservancy Fights Planned Border Fence

National Public Radio
January 26, 2009
John Burnett

The Department of Homeland Security has completed 90 percent of its controversial 670-mile border fence — most of the sections from California to western Texas. But the border barrier is running into opposition from conservationists in far southern Texas.

From the road there, it's not obvious there's much down to protect. The great river delta that comprises the southern tip of Texas, known as the lower Rio Grande Valley, is a vast patchwork of citrus orchards and vegetable fields, shopping centers and car lots.

Yet, down on the banks of the muddy, torpid Rio Grande, "It's a jungle," says Sonia Najera of The Nature Conservancy. "It's incredible wildlife and vegetation and habitat."

The Nature Conservancy owns the Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve — a thousand acres that include one of the largest remaining forests of native sabal palm. There, imperiled wildcats like the ocelot and jaguarundi still skulk through the underbrush. Birdwatchers come from around the world to check green jays, chachalacas and black-bellied whistling ducks off their life lists.

So last month, when the Department of Homeland Security announced its intention to erect an 18-foot tall, concrete-and-steel barrier for a mile through the preserve, the Nature Conservancy was not happy. Though the fence would be built on mainly nonforested land, conservationists worry it will sever the refuge.

"If the fence is constructed, it will trap three-quarters of the preserve between the fence and the river. That includes all of our facilities, includes the home of our preserve manager who lives there full-time," Najera says.

The conservancy has refused to accept the government's offer of $114,000 in compensation for the land under the fence. Now, Homeland Security has sued in federal court to force the sanctuary to let it build the barrier.

Other landowners, farmers and cities along the river also have said no to the fence. But a spokesperson with the federal agency says they've been able to work out a deal with most of the holdouts.

Dan Doty of the Border Patrol's Rio Grande sector says the new wall — though industrial in appearance — will be permeable and allow the passage of wildlife. He says people who live and work along the river will also be able to get through the wall by means of secure gates.

"The Rio Grande River is a beautiful resource. Our farmers depend on it, the communities here depend on it. Our goal is not to deny access to the river to anybody," Doty says.

The fence is part of border security measures mandated by Congress that include physical barriers, more agents and high-tech detection devices.

Though there's widespread skepticism among border residents as to whether the fence will do any good, the government reports that arrests of illegal crossers are down 19 percent since the fence went up — which it claims is significant, even accounting for the sour economy.

But conservationists remain concerned that a more secure border comes at a high price for habitat. The Nature Conservancy refuge is part of a 30-year effort to piece together public and private lands into a continuous wildlife corridor along the lower Rio Grande.

"Some estimates are that there's 1 percent of native natural land left along the river," says Betty Perez, a rancher and environmentalist in the area. "And the wall is fragmenting that."

The Nature Conservancy is hoping that the new Obama administration may consider alternatives to the final stages of the border barrier.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99882066

Environmentalists: $50M unable to mitigate border fence

Brownsville Herald
January 21, 2009

The federal government allocated $50 million last week to minimize the adverse environmental impact of the border fence - a measure that came just two weeks after the government sued one of Brownsville's largest nature preserves in order to begin work on the barrier.

Environmentalists in South Texas and beyond call the government's attempt at mitigation inadequate, pointing out that it might not aid fragile habitats outside of federal jurisdiction.

"Because we're not owned by the federal government, this money isn't for us," said Sonia Najera, South Texas Program Coordinator for The Nature Conservancy, which owns Brownsville's Lennox Southmost Preserve.

At the Southmost Preserve and the Sabal Palm Audubon Center - two preserves that will be bisected by the fence - officials see a simple solution: keep the barrier off environmentally sensitive land.

"The damage already done to the borderland's natural and cultural resources is dramatic," said Michael Degnan, the Sierra Club's associate Washington representative. "Border walls have caused devastating floods in communities and have bisected critical wildlife corridors."
But unlike wildlife corridors in Arizona, most of the Lower Rio Grande Valley is still unscathed by fencing.

Environmentalists hoped that once President Barack Obama took office, plans to build fencing along the Rio Grande Valley's wildlife corridor would be derailed.

But a spokesperson for Obama told TIME Magazine that the president supports the fence "as long as it is one part of a larger strategy on border security that includes more boots on the ground and increased use of technology."

If Obama chooses not to halt construction in the Rio Grande Valley, both Brownsville preserves will be situated in a no-man's land south of the fence. The Sabal Palm Audubon Center has announced that its doors will close after more than 37 years if the fence is constructed. For Southmost Preserve, it's a "wait- and-see" situation, officials said.

"I was surprised by (the Obama administration's statement)," said Najera. "Why are we spending so much money to construct the fence without trying other measures that would have less of an environmental impact?"

A portion of the newly allocated $50 million will likely be spent in the Valley to restore or recreate the habitats of native species, according to Rick Schultz, the U.S. Department of the Interior's national borderland coordinator.

But the mitigation efforts are aimed at compensating for the impacts to resources "managed, protected or under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior," according to federal documents. That stipulation leaves Brownsville's privately owned preserves with little consolation, Najera said.

"I wasn't happy about that," she said. "But the fence hasn't been constructed here yet. There's still hope in Cameron County."

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/fence_93928___article.html/valley_obama.html

A Natural Treasure That May End Up Without a Country

New York Times
April 7, 2008

At the very bottom of this country, where the Rio Grande loops up and down as if determined to thwart territorial imperatives, there sits a natural wonderland called the Sabal Palm Audubon Center. Rare birds of impossible colors dart about the rustling jungle, while snakes slink, tortoises dawdle and the occasional ocelot grants a rare sighting.

After decades of reclamation and preservation, and after millions of public and private dollars spent, this has become a vital place in one of the nation’s very poorest cities. Beyond the busloads of gawking schoolchildren, the center also attracts birders from around the world to spend money the color of their beloved olive sparrow in local restaurants and hotels.

But if you yearn to hear the clattering call of the chachalaca at Sabal Palm, your travel plans perhaps should factor in the Fence. Yes, the Fence: that ever-encroaching cross between the Berlin Wall and Christo’s Gates (Artist: Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security, with funding provided by the United States of America).

The guardians of Sabal Palm fear, and with good reason, that in trying to keep out illegal immigrants, the Department of Homeland Security will soon be erecting the border fence just north of the bird sanctuary, effectively trimming this natural treasure from the rest of the country and probably forcing its closure. In other words, they say, a very thoughtful gift of about 550 acres to Mexico.

And this may be a gift that keeps on giving. Conservationists and landowners worry that the Fence will also cut across a river-hugging wildlife corridor that stretches over several Texas counties, painstakingly restored and maintained by, among others, the federal government.

Nailing down Homeland Security’s plans is like trying to spot the elusive ocelot. When asked whether the agency intends to build the Fence north of the sanctuary, its chief spokesman, Russ Knocke, said: “I can’t rule that out, but I cannot also definitely tell you that that will be the case.”

He said the agency had adjusted its plans in the past to address environmental issues whenever possible (although it announced last week that it would bypass environmental reviews to expedite construction of the Fence). For example, he said, a stretch of the Fence in the Arizona desert includes crevices for an endangered lizard — crevices “too small for a human being to get through and large enough for the lizard.”

Mr. Knocke said the agency would continue to listen to advice and complaints from the public, but he emphasized its desire “to move quickly,” given its Congressional mandate to install fencing and other security measures along the southern border by the end of the year.

So when will the National Audubon Society learn whether its Sabal Palm sanctuary winds up south of the new border? “I couldn’t tell you a specific date,” Mr. Knocke said. “But there should be no uncertainty about how quickly we want to move.”

Put yourself, then, in the dusty shoes of Jimmy Paz, 66, the weathered manager of Sabal Palm. At the moment he is sitting at a picnic bench outside the modest visitors center, trying to speak above some chattering chachalacas feeding on grapefruit rinds. Now and then he interrupts himself to point out the iridescent brilliance of a green jay, or to ask passing birders where they are from.

Montana, a few say. California, say others.

Mr. Paz, a native of not just Brownsville but “beautiful Brownsville,” knows the area and its rhythms. He says the Fence would create a twilight zone out of a swath of distinctive American soil, disrupt and damage wildlife and have the opposite of the intended effect: it will be the birders and other tourists — not the illegal immigrants — who stop coming. It may also put him out of a job.

“It would be like putting a fence around Central Park,” he said.

Mr. Paz remembers cycling as a boy to the “palm jungle” along the Rio to re-enact scenes from the Tarzan movies he had just seen at the Queen Theatre in downtown beautiful Brownsville. After a decade in the Army, he returned to hold a series of jobs, including police officer and windshield repairman, while the Audubon Society acquired parcels of that jungle to create a sanctuary to be called Sabal Palm, after the stocky palm trees of the Rio Grande valley.

Ten years ago he became manager of the very property where he once imitated Johnny Weissmuller — property that sits roughly between a bio-diverse preserve owned by the Nature Conservancy of Texas and a swath of land restored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Combined, Eden.

Mr. Paz has come to know those who frequent this sanctuary: the buff-bellied hummingbirds, the long-billed thrashers, the ever-prowling Border Patrol agents, the river-wet visitors from Mexico, passing through. Driving the grounds in his pickup truck, he points to a telltale inflatable tube, discarded at river’s edge.

A decade ago, he says, federal agents intercepted hundreds of illegal immigrants a month on Sabal Palm grounds. But as border security increased, and as patterns changed, the number of interceptions dropped dramatically. Now, he says, not even 20 a month are caught, with very few carrying contraband like marijuana.

Yes, until recently life was peaceful at Sabal Palm. The schoolchildren and birders would come in. Mr. Paz and his assistant, Cecilia Farrell, would collect the small fee, sell handbooks, maintain the grounds. Come 5 o’clock, they would leave the sanctuary in the care of a wiry night watchman who has lived on the property for nearly a half-century. His name is Ernie Ortiz, he is 82, and he packs a .38.

What’s more, the relationship between the Border Patrol and Sabal Palm was quite friendly. Border Patrol sensors are in the sanctuary’s soil, in its mesquite trees, everywhere. And when Sabal Palm staged a hawk watch, the Border Patrol provided a portable tower for spotting nothing more than birds.

But now Sabal Palm lives from rumor to rumor, gleaned mostly from Mr. Paz’s chats with border agents and a proposed map contained in a draft report by the federal government. There will be a fence along the levee. A fence along the levee with a gate. A fence along the levee with a gate, and Sabal Palm will have a key.

None of these eases the concerns that Anne Brown, the executive director of Audubon Texas, has about insurance, city services — the sanctuary’s very existence. “Do we check passports?” she asks. “Since the fence becomes the new border, what are we? Are we in Mexico?”

Homeland Security says it will reveal its plans for Brownsville very soon. Until then, the likes of Mr. Paz carry on, unsure of the very ground they stand on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/us/07land.html?ex=1208232000&en=68d5f3566e8baca7&ei=5070&emc=eta1