Border Birds Study

Launched in Spring 2020, the Sky Island Alliance’s binational Border Wildlife Study documents the remarkable diversity of wildlife species in the Sky Island region of Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora, Mexico — collecting data on wildlife populations and movement in a section of the border that is under imminent threat from the Trump administration’s proposed border wall. Announced in early 2020, nearly 100 miles of new border wall sections are proposed to cut the Sky Island region in two in Southern Arizona. The wall will stop many wildlife species in their tracks, including jaguars, wolves, ocelots, pronghorn, black bear, pygmy owls, box turtles, and dozens of species of butterfly. How many birds will be able to pass over the border unimpeded?

We need your help to sort through the thousands of photos taken by our motion-activated camera array along the U.S.-Mexico border and identify the bird species detected. This information will be used to both document the incredible wildlife of this biological hotspot—the most biodiverse region of inland North America—and advocate for the urgent protection of critical wildlife corridors in the face of border wall construction.