Newsweek
Feb. 26, 2024
Cactuses dying after being moved for border wall sparks concern
At the height of border wall construction, more than 100 saguaros were dug out of environmentally delicate areas along the U.S.-Mexico border to make room for that infrastructure. Nearly four years later, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reports as many as half of those saguaros did not survive the move. "Larger saguaros do not take well to being dug up and relocated, unless an extensive part of the root system is also carefully excavated," said plant ecologist Peter Breslin at the University of Arizona Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill. "Saguaros also have to be oriented the same when they are replanted, so the north- and south-facing parts of the plant are positioned that way when they are relocated. If the north-facing side of the saguaro is planted facing south, the plant will scorch and often die, due to increased UV and heat."