National border walls are bad news for wildlife, too

Like the Berlin Wall, but for wildlife: Animal families are being split up thanks to a 185 km wall border recently constructed between Poland and Belarus to keep refugees out, BBC reports. The wall cuts through a forest and has halted migrating wildlife from taking their path. The European Commission in Brussels had tried to stop the construction, as it could result in “the collapse of the Polish lowland lynx population,” threatening the local extinction of the species. Climate change is already threatening 35% of mammals globally due to changing weather patterns that alter their surroundings, forcing them to migrate and keep moving.