Food

Every species has its own specific food requirements, and those requirements may change with the season or as the animal grows. Timber harvesting and planting trees and shrubs are the most powerful tools you have for affecting the quality of food available to wildlife. You are looking to create a diversity of food sources that are available year-round. When managing your woodlands, choose to favor the plants that your desired wildlife feed on or that the prey of your desired wildlife feed on.

Learn more about what to plant to attract wildlife in So What Should I Plant? (PDF) and Woody Cover for Wildlife (PDF). Learn about shelterbelts and food plots in Gimme Shelter (PDF).

Shelter (cover)

Wildlife use cover for raising their young, escaping predators, and for protection from severe weather. The more diversity you have in cover, the more diversity in wildlife you will attract. This includes diversity in the types of trees and shrubs and their sizes and ages. This also includes diversity in the non-living parts of your forest like rock piles, standing dead trees, and brush piles.

• Learn how to create brush piles for wildlife in Rabbitat (PDF).
• Learn how to manage dead wood for wildlife in Critter Condos (PDF).
• Learn how the edge between habitats is important to wildlife in On Edge (PDF).

Water

Wildlife use water bodies for a number of reasons, including for drinking, bathing, and finding something to eat. Adding some kind of water feature to your property (if you had none before) will most likely get you an immediate increase in the number of wildlife that will visit your property. However, you don’t necessarily need to have a body of water on your property to get wildlife—many times they can fulfill their need for water in other ways. They might be using water bodies on nearby properties. Many animals get most of their water from the things they eat. In general, moving water with some aquatic plants will attract more wildlife than standing water with nothing growing in it.

• Learn more about restoring wetlands on your property in Just Add Water (PDF).
• Learn more about managing stream corridors for wildlife in Wealth of the Waterways (PDF).

Living space

Every wildlife species has a unique pattern of space and territorial needs. The space needs of some wildlife can be easily fulfilled in a small amount of land, whereas others require thousands of acres and will most likely be something you can do nothing about. Along with size, other characteristics of living space important to wildlife include:

• The shape and constituents of that living space
• Its connectedness to other habitats
• How it changes over time.

Learn how to develop a plan for molding your forest into great wildlife habitat in Putting Pen to Paper (PDF).

Inventory and monitor wildlife

Now that you know the basic needs of wildlife, it is time to get started making your forest attractive to wildlife. A good first step is to figure who is using your property now. You may have already collected some data on which wildlife are on your property by noting the tracks they leave or actually seeing the animals. That is good, but you want to be more thorough so that you can actually see the impact the changes you are making to your forest are having. Here is a great publication on how to inventory and monitor wildlife on your property (PDF). It includes some easy-to-do activities that your whole family will enjoy.

After you have collected some data on who is using your property, it is time to make some changes to attract more and different wildlife. Start by figuring out exactly what it is you are hoping to get out of any activity. The more specific you can be, the better plan you will assemble and the more satisfied you will be with the results. It is a good idea to spread your activities out over several years so that you don’t get overwhelmed all at once.

Learn more about the basics of wildlife management in:

• Calling All Wildlife (PDF)
• Wisconsin Wildlife Primer (PDF)
• A Landowner’s Guide to Woodland Wildlife Management (PDF).

Learn how to enhance your woodland for wildlife in To Cut or Not To Cut? (PDF)

Be aware of threatened and endangered species

Even though our forests here in Wisconsin may not seem like anything special, they contain some plants and animals whose populations are declining. There are a number of simple things that we can do to protect these species and their habitats while still achieving our own goals for our forests. Take some time to review this list of threatened and endangered species and see if your property may contain any of them.

(If someone’s property does have threatened or endangered species, what action steps can we give them?)

Further reading