© WindStar Wildlife Institute
Talk to anyone involved in the improvement of
wildlife habitat and you will hear four words –
food, water, cover, and space.
These are the four essentials for wildlife.
Without them you can have the best intentions in
the world, but you won’t attract a wide variety of
species to your property.
Food & Water
Essential Elements
of a Wildlife Habitat
W
ildlife doesn’t just randomly
occur in a given area; it is
there in response to habitat
which meets its needs. As
beautiful as humans may find a
house surrounded by acres of
emerald-green mowed lawn, such
a scene offers neither food nor
shelter for local species.
If you want wildlife to be part
of your environment, you have to
do some planning to include
suitable habitat in your
landscape.
Food for Wildlife
The first essential that we
tend to think about is food.
Indeed, one of the most popular
nature activities in this country
is bird feeding. What we may
forget, however, is that there
are many species of birds, a
great number of which are not
seed-eaters and will never visit
our feeders, but all of which
need food throughout the year.
The same is true of other
wildlife, and this can give us the
basis of our landscape planning.
It also means that we need to
reconsider our attitudes
towards yard maintenance.
Insecticides can kill food
sources and poison many of the
species that we want to
attract, so its use needs to be
curtailed.
Choosing native plants and
limiting lawn areas will help
lessen dependence on
pesticides and herbicides. While
we view weeds and wild vines as
nuisance plants, wildlife sees
them as valuable sources of
food and shelter, so we should
look for areas where they can be
left to grow.
