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As fires raged out West this summer, there was plenty of finger-pointing about who or what was to blame. The public heard very little about one major factor: rapid population growth in wooded habitats of the American West subject to natural fire regime.

Immigration is driving U.S. population growth, and will continue to account for almost all population growth over the next forty years. We need to think about the effects of growth when we formulate immigration policy. One of the effects is continuing sprawl, and the loss of habitat for wildlife.

Fewer flocks and feathers grace our skies, forests, coasts, grasslands, and deserts these days. That's not just a coincidence. As human population increases and millions of acres of natural lands and habitats are permanently altered or lost to development, the survival of our avian neighbors is threatened.

Around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, when there were 130 million fewer Americans than at present, environmental scientists, activists and even politicians were outspoken and unequivocal on the threat posed by a growing U.S. population. Yet neither the Trump administration nor its harshest environmentalist detractors are willing to recognize or resolve the greatest threat to all wildlife in the United States: large-scale habitat loss from incessant U.S. population growth.