Create Wildlife Habitat in Your Woods

Create Wildlife Habitat in Your Woods

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> Components of wildlife habitat

> What you can do

Jump to section:

> Components of wildlife habitat

> What you can do

Related webpages

Enjoy recreation in your woods
Plant and maintain new trees
Harvest and sell timber

Here in Wisconsin, we are fortunate to have a wide array of native wildlife, from the wood frogs and migratory songbirds whose singing marks the coming of spring to the turkey and deer who make possible countless families’ cherished hunting traditions. Regardless of how you interact with them, getting to see and hear wildlife is one of the joys of spending time in woodlands. Keep reading to learn how you can help wildlife thrive on your land.

What are the components of wildlife habitat?

All wildlife need food, shelter, water, and space. Food and cover are the most important of these—in fact, more wildlife will die from lack of cover than from starvation. You can still attract wildlife to your property without having all of these components, but you will have a better chance if you do have all four on your property or on nearby properties.

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Food

white oak leaves and immature acorns

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 (snags), and brush piles.

Brush pile in a northern hardwoods forest

Learn how to create brush piles for wildlife (PDF)

two tall dead trees in a forest

Learn how to manage dead wood for wildlife (PDF)

Edge of a forest with ferns

Learn how to create habitat edges for wildlife (PDF)

Water

an ephemeral stream in early spring
This ephemeral stream in Stevens Point flows for just a couple months in the spring, providing an important source of water for wildlife.

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.

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).

What you can do

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Inventory and monitor wildlife

footprints of human and turkey in snow
pitfall trap consisting of holes in the ground loosely covered, with vertical barriers between them
scent post survey consisting of sifted bare soil with a white rock in the middle
trail camera on a tree

Some ways you can inventory and monitor wildlife on your property include (left to right) tracks in the snow, pitfall traps, a scented track station, and trail cameras.

Chart showing the phenology of frog and toad songs throughout the year in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.
Typical breeding timeline when you can hear frogs and toads in Portage County (central Wisconsin). In northern Wisconsin, you may hear calls later; in southern Wisconsin, you may hear calls earlier.

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 you hope 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:

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.

Additional resources

If you have feedback on this webpage, fill out this form. If you have questions about wildlife and your woods, contact:

Jamie Nack

Jamie Nack
Senior Wildlife Outreach Specialist
jlnack@wisc.edu
608-265-8264

Page written by Kris Tiles, Bill Klase, and Scott Hershberger and reviewed by Jamie Nack (UW–Madison Extension). Last updated May 2026.

Additional photo credits:

  • Northern flying squirrel: Henrique Pacheco, CC BY 4.0
  • Red fox: US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bugwood.org
  • North American river otter in Bayfield County: Snapshot Wisconsin
  • Deer in Sawyer County: Snapshot Wisconsin
  • Ruffed grouse in Sawyer County: Snapshot Wisconsin
  • Scarlet tanager: Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org
  • Ruffed grouse in snow: Elmer Verhasselt, Bugwood.org
  • Common five-lined skink: Micah McDaniel, ABAC & UGA, Bugwood.org
  • White oak leaves and acorns: Paul Wray, Iowa State University, Bugwood.org