Authors: James T. Walters, former Extension Associate, Department of Forestry, College of Natural Resources, Virginia Tech and James E. Johnson, Associate Dean of Outreach, College of Natural Resources, Virginia Tech.
Publication Number: 420-144, posted March 2000
Chapter 5: Provide Wildlife Habitat
Wildlife resources are very important components of a sustainable forest. They improve the aesthetics
of the forest, provide hunting and observation opportunities, and increase property value. Wildlife
may not have monetary value, but it certainly has aesthetic, recreational, and scientific value.
There are also important interactions between plants and animals of the forest. For example, trees
provide food for birds and small animals that, in turn, transport tree seeds to new sites. The
wildlife in your forest is an important asset.
Habitat consists of the physical and biological surroundings of an animal. Climate, soil, topography, and aspect all can influence the plants that grow in a forest. The plants, in turn, influence which animals will live in the area. Because plants are an important component of wildlife habitat, any management activities you plan for your forest should take into account your wildlife management goals.
All wild animals cannot live in the same type of habitat. Some species have very specific habitat requirements. For example, some bats roost in caves, rock outcrops, and old buildings. If you do not have these features in your forest, then you will have difficulty managing for these bats that depend on these resources. Furthermore, animals cannot survive in open habitats unprotected from predators. Foxes and owls will be successful in preying on rabbits where brushy cover does not exist.
The first step in managing wildlife habitat is determining which species you want to emphasize. You may have specified certain species in your ownership objectives. If your ownership objectives do not specify which wildlife species, or group of species, you desire, then you should create a list of those you enjoy. Write these down in order of importance to you. You can then start at the top of your list and manage for wildlife in order of importance. You may discover that animals on your list can actually live in your forest if it is managed properly.
It is important to achieve a balance in your management objectives -- sustainable wildlife management is not trying to maximize the numbers of a single game species. Instead, sustainable management is the encouragement of desired species in natural habitat that contains all the normal forest animals.
When you have determined which species, or group of species, you want to encourage in your forest, there are several management strategies you can pursue. It is a good idea to understand the wildlife you want to manage, provide the basic habitat requirements for these animals in your forest, and work with neighbors to manage wildlife in the local area.
Strategy #1: Understand the Wildlife Species you Want to Manage
You should develop a good working knowledge of the wildlife species you want to manage before you devise a plan to improve habitat in your forest. This knowledge will help you make better decisions, communicate with professional wildlife managers, and understand the wildlife in your forest. You can learn about the wildlife in your forest by researching their biological needs and by talking with wildlife biologists.
As you research the needs of the wildlife species you want to manage, you should look for information that will help you understand the annual lifestyle of the species. You should learn about the foods they eat, the places they live, how they reproduce, their life cycle, seasonal patterns in behavior, and similar information. You may want to keep notes on the information you find and keep these notes with your forest management plan. You may even find that this information will help you to better enjoy and appreciate the wildlife in your forest.
There are a variety of sources of information about wildlife. A good place to start your search is your local library, which will likely have books about wildlife. You may also find information about wildlife in publications from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, the Virginia Department of Forestry, Virginia Cooperative Extension, or other government agencies. These agencies often offer educational programs at little or no charge. Additional information may be obtained by contacting wildlife conservation groups such as the Wild Turkey Federation or Ducks Unlimited. Finally, you could search for information on the internet if you have access to a linked computer. However, you should carefully consider the quality of the information that you receive. The validity and accuracy of most web sites is not checked.
A professional wildlife biologist is a valuable resource for specific information about wildlife. The biologist can give you information about preferred foods and habitats of local wildlife. The biologist may come to your forest and suggest management activities to improve wildlife habitat.
Before you contact a wildlife biologist, read several books and publications on wildlife to help you understand the technical terms used in wildlife management. Reading background information will also give you ideas about the management activities that might work well in your forest. Finally, this research will help you develop specific questions about the management activities you are planning for your property.
You may find that you have access to both public and private wildlife biologists. The biologists with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) are an example of public biologists. Private biologists are consultants who charge a fee to help landowners with wildlife management. The VDGIF offers wildlife management services at no charge, but their time and availability are limited. Conversely, a private wildlife consultant will help you with every detail in your wildlife plan, but will charge you for this service. You will need to decide how much input you need from a wildlife biologist and choose one accordingly.
Strategy #2: Provide Basic Habitat Requirements for Desired Wildlife
All wildlife need food, water, cover, and space in order to survive. These basic biological needs are the most important components of the wildlife habitat in your forest. When one of these needs is not satisfied, it limits the number of animals that can live in your forest. For example, if you do not have any trees that produce nuts and acorns, it is unlikely that you will have many squirrels. In this example, availability of food will limit the number of squirrels in your forest. The maximum number of healthy animals that can be sustained in your forest is called the biological carrying capacity, and it can be influenced greatly by the quality of wildlife habitat.
By determining which basic need is limiting the carrying capacity of your forest, you may be able to improve habitat by augmenting that limiting component. For example, if there is no source of water in your forest, then increasing the amount of food may have no significant impact on wildlife utilization. Likewise, if there is no protection from predators, then you are unlikely to successfully attract quail or grouse to your forest. Therefore, you should inventory the food, the cover, and the water resources in your forest. When this inventory is complete, you will have a better understanding of whether to improve the food supply, offer permanent water, or enhance cover needed by individual species.
There are numerous techniques available to favorably manipulate habitat. The techniques utilized should be determined on the basis of cost, extent of treatment, landowner skill, available tools, and timing. Plans should incorporate these concerns and prioritize the most valuable habitat management techniques. Cost share assistance is sometimes available from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service for techniques that are particularly advantageous in the region.
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On A Side Note ...
Common Misconceptions about Food Plots There is a common misconception about the purpose and use of planted wildlife food plots. Single, small, and isolated food plots have little impact on the overall supply of food and typically benefit only a small number of individual animals. Predation can increase in and around the plot if the wildlife population becomes concentrated around the food plot. However, food plots are useful in improving wildlife viewing and hunting opportunities. Therefore, you should carefully consider your options before planting food plots in your forest. The best place to plant wildlife food plots is in the current openings in your forest. Log landings, skid trails, and similar openings are the most common. The best food plots are planted on sites where the food plant would grow naturally. Food plots along streams can be very productive, but it can be difficult to control undesirable vegetation in these good sites. Your forester or a wildlife biologist can help you to determine where to establish food plots and which native plants to grow. You should also be prepared to maintain the food plots in your forest. Maintenance can be time-consuming and expensive because land clearing, burning, herbicide application, mowing, cultivating, and replanting may be necessary. If you are interested in more information about food plots, you might contact a biologist at the local office of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. |
Animals can be divided into three distinct groups based on the tyof foods that they eat. Herbivores are animals that eat primarily plants and fruits. Examples of herbivores are deer, squirrels, and rabbits. Carnivores are animals that eat meat. Foxes and hawks are carnivores that may hunt prey in your forest. Omnivores, such as bears and raccoons, are animals that regularly eat both meat and plants or fruits. The food management activities you perform in your forest will usually focus on herbivores. Even if you have interest in managing a carnivore, an effective way to manage its food supply is through manipulation of the plants in your forest. By improving the habitat quality for herbivores, their numbers may increase, thus improving the food supply for carnivores in your forest. The regular presence of carnivores is a good indication of successful management for prey species.
Two important characteristics of herbivore foods are quality and availability. Quality is a measure of nutrition and palatability. Wildlife will usually eat the most nutritious and palatable foods that are available in their habitat. Food quality can be divided into four categories. Preferred foods are those that have very high nutritional value and are most palatable, but are often uncommon. Staple foods are abundant and satisfy an animal's nutritional needs, but may be less palatable than preferred foods. Staple foods are the "meat and potatoes" of animal life. Emergency foods have lower nutritional value and are eaten to sustain an animal through temporary periods of nutritional need. Emergency foods will not support an animal in good health over a sustained period of time. Stuffers are those foods that an animal eats when no other food is available. Stuffers have no nutritional value; they simply fill the gut. Management should be targeted at providing staple foods for your wildlife.
Food availability refers to the amount of food that is available and how accessible that food is to wildlife. Both of these attributes are important. An abundant supply of food is useless if it is not accessible to the animals. For example, many states now have very large deer populations. In some forests, deer have browsed the entire understory as high as they can reach. There may be ample nutritious browse left up in the canopy, but deer cannot reach it.
It is also important to consider the seasonal nature of the food supply in your forest. Foods that are abundant in summer are likely to disappear by fall. Furthermore, foods that are still available may have deteriorated to the point that they have low nutritional value. Some species of wildlife deal with these seasonal food shortages by storing food when it is available. For example, squirrels store acorns and nuts in the fall and save them for winter, when the supply of nuts diminishes. Bears eat extra food in the summer and fall so they can hibernate in the winter. However, most wildlife in your forest will need food throughout the year. Managing these species will involve increasing the supply of food in seasons when the supply is low or improving food quality.
The first step in providing food for wildlife in your forest is to inventory the different types of food that are available. You will need to determine which foods you have for each species, where it is located, and when these foods are available. When your inventory of wildlife food is complete, you can determine whether there are seasonal shortages in the food supply or if there are problems with geographic distribution of the food. If there are seasonal shortages, you can attempt to increase the supply of food during these periods by manipulating the vegetation in a favorable manner to enhance food production. If the food is clustered in one area, plans to better distribute the resources may be needed.
There may be many different types of food (e.g., buds, nuts, berries, etc.) that you can encourage in each season that will provide ample supply for your wildlife population. You should encourage staple foods for the species that you are managing. The best foods are those that naturally occur in your forest. For example, you might be able to enhance the browse that is already established, or you may consider encouraging a small patch of plants that is already present in your forest.
The specific approach you take regarding food resources will depend on the species you have identified as your main objective. For example, the best way to increase food supply may simply be to let the forest mature. Older trees and plants typically produce more nuts, have more branches and twigs, and can be more productive than younger plants. Some wildlife species, such as tree squirrels, simply must live near mature trees because they depend heavily on the foods that they provide. In other cases, you may want to remove the tree cover to promote a younger habitat that certain species are dependent upon. The information you learn about the species you want to manage will dictate the necessary components of wildlife habitat you should strive to provide.
A clump of mast trees diversifies the food supply in this harvested area. |
Harvesting timber can significantly increase the amount and quality of browse in your forest. When you harvest timber, you increase the amount of sunlight that reaches the forest floor. This increased sunlight stimulates the growth of herbaceous and small woody plants, which are beneficial for browsing species such as deer. However, it is a good idea to leave groups of mast trees. Mast trees produce fruits or nuts that are important foods for some wildlife species. These trees help to diversify the types of food available in your forest. Good mast trees include oak, hickory, cherry, blackgum, dogwood, and beech.
Thinning your forest can also have a notable impact on the amount of food in your forest. Thinning allows sunlight to reach plants in the understory and focuses the forest's resources on trees that produce important wildlife food. For example, if you thin around groups of mature oaks in your forest, these trees often will produce more acorns.
Prescribed burning is a very valuable wildlife management tool. Use of controlled fire in the understory of your forest will stimulate the growth of herbaceous and woody plants. A properly conducted burn will not harm the mast-producing trees in the overstory. A prescribed burn also improves the quality of herbaceous plants in small grassy openings within your forest. Small grassy openings attract insects, which are an important source of food for birds. Vigorous weeds, forbs, and grasses will contain many more insects. You should seek assistance from the Virginia Department of Forestry if you are interested in a prescribed burn. Fires can be dangerous and difficult to manage without the proper equipment used in accordance with a good fire plan.
Water is an important component of wildlife habitat, but it is not generally considered to be a limiting habitat factor for upland wildlife in Virginia. All species of wildlife need water and some even live in it. Therefore, water must be available year-round in or near your forest.
Wildlife can get water from several places in your forest. An obvious source of water is a stream or pond, but many forest properties do not contain such a body of water. In these forests, animals might get water from puddles that form during wet weather. They may also get water from rain, snow, or dew on plants they can reach. Finally, there is water available in the food eaten by wildlife.
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An effective way to increase the availability of water in your forest is to build a small pond. A pond provides drinking water for wildlife and adds diversity to the wildlife habitat in your forest. Ponds located in sites that have level topography, an ample supply of water, and enough clay to hold water in the pond are best. Ponds should have escape cover nearby so that animals using the pond can escape from predators. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the Natural Resources Conservation Service can assist you in planning and constructing a wildlife pond in your forest.
Cover is the component of habitat that provides shelter, protection, and concealment. Examples of cover that you may find in your forest include thick vegetation, caves, rocky outcrops, old buildings, and other features. Every animal has specific cover requirements. You can improve wildlife abundance in your forest by enhancing cover.
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There are many different types of wildlife cover. For example, hiding cover is used as protection from predators. Thermal cover protects animals from severe weather such as rain and snow and from extreme temperatures. Reproductive cover is a place for wildlife to raise young and usually contains the nest or den site. Additional types of cover are used for escape, roosting, brood-rearing, and bugging. Many of the wildlife species found in your forest have very specific cover needs during their lifetime. Also, an animal's cover needs change with the season. For example, a deer uses hiding cover to hide from predators, including deer hunters. In winter, deer may spend more time in thick stands of pine trees, seeking thermal cover. Therefore, it is a good idea to create diversity in the wildlife habitat of your forest.
There are many management activities that you can perform to enhance cover in your forest. Improvements can be targeted at enhancing cover for smaller animals, including such activities as creating wildlife trees, brush piles, or nesting boxes. Habitat improvement for larger animals usually involves long-term planning and more intense activities. Examples of more intensive management activities include creating shrubby edges between plant communities, forming corridors between major habitat features, and encouraging a thicker understory.
Wildlife trees are standing dead or live trees that provide cover for wildlife. Snags are upright dead trees that often contain insects and provide potential sites for cavities. Cavity trees are usually live trees with internal cavities that can provide nesting and denning cover. Large-diameter trees are the best wildlife trees because they provide more nesting areas. A good mix of hardwood and softwood wildlife trees is desirable because these trees will decompose at different rates. Different animals will use a tree at different stages of decomposition. For example, a squirrel might build a nest in the cavity of an old oak tree. The squirrel will leave this tree if it dies and falls down, but a fallen tree provides excellent cover for reptiles such as snakes and lizards.
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Nesting boxes can serve the same purpose as a cavity tree or snag and can be used to temporarily supplement
or replace wildlife trees where they are limited. Boxes are particularly useful in managing wild birds.
Nesting boxes should be carefully maintained, including cleaning the box after each nesting season. If
the box is not cleaned, birds may not use the box in the future. Nesting boxes should be placed in
locations that the bird would normally use as a nesting site. For example, barn owl boxes should be
placed near a barn, old building, or open field. Likewise, a nesting box for wood ducks should be
placed in the forest near a wet area rather than on posts in open water.
Brush piles are an easy cover feature to create and are valuable for small mammals, birds, and insects. Simply piling small branches and downed trees can form brush piles, but the size and shape of the pile are important considerations for some wildlife species. The period following a timber harvest is the ideal time to create brush piles because there is a large supply of logging slash and natural cover may be limited. It is a good idea, however, to avoid placing brush piles immediately along streams.
Regular forest management activities can certainly improve the wildlife cover in your forest. Harvesting timber will allow more sunlight to reach the forest floor, thereby encouraging the growth of a thick stand of young trees that can serve as hiding cover for deer and other large wildlife. Unmerchantable tops provide escape and nesting cover until they decay. Thinning and prescribed burning provide similar results by enhancing hiding cover. Planting pine trees will increase the hiding cover in your forest over the short-term, but will also provide thermal cover when the trees are older. Forest management can enhance habitat for some type of wildlife, but may also make habitat conditions unsuitable for other species. Thus, it is important to determine which species you are interested in managing and what implications your management plans are likely to have on them and other species.
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On A Side Note ...
Cover for Bobwhite Quail The bobwhite quail is a wildlife species that has very specific cover needs requiring careful planning and management. Bobwhite quail require specific types of cover for hiding, reproducing, thermal protection, nesting, and brood-rearing. Quail use nesting cover for protection from predators and for feeding on insects, seeds, and small sprouts. Ideal nesting cover is found in abandoned agricultural fields, brushy fence rows, cutover timberland, and wide edges between forests and fields. An important characteristic of good quail habitat is that it is open near the ground surface so that quail can move freely beneath overhead cover. Quail also need escape and winter cover, which usually consists of dense, woody areas along a wood¼s edge, treeline, or fenceline. Over the last 50 years, many farms were abandoned and provided abundant quail habitat. The combination of fields and brushy areas provided all the cover requirements for quail. However, many of these farms are developing into thick forests, which are not ideal habitat for quail. To manage these properties for quail, management practices that can sustain the necessary types of cover are needed (e.g., periodic plowing, discing, or burning old fields). Discing, plowing, and burning are useful management practices because they prevent old fields from growing into young forests. Normally, these areas should be burned or cultivated every three to five years, or whenever woody plants are emerging as the dominant cover. After a field has been burned or cultivated, it will grow back in herbaceous cover that is ideal for quail. When you burn or cultivate, some areas of small woody plants and shrubs, such as honeysuckle, blackberry, greenbriar, vines, persimmon, sassafras, and dogwood, should be saved. These plants provide cover sanctuaries for quail. You can improve quail habitat in your forest by thinning and burning. Thinning your timber allows more sunlight to reach the forest floor and encourages the growth of herbaceous plants. Periodic burning of a thinned forest will prevent woody species from becoming established in the understory. Thinning and burning in your forest will create cover conditions similar to those found in an abandoned field. Bobwhite quail is a good example of wildlife that requires specific cover conditions. If you are interested in more information about quail, you might want to contact the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and ask for the publication "Virginia Bobwhite Quail," which contains an in-depth discussion of habitat management practices for bobwhite quail. |
Edge is the boundary between two different plant communities, such as a hardwood forest and an open field.
Here, the two communities mix and create a transition zone. These edges can be very important habitat
components for wildlife that utilize the adjacent plant communities. Edge is particularly important
for animals that use a variety of areas to eat, rest, and breed. Soft edges have a blend of vegetation,
creating a wider transition zone and supplying more food and cover than hard edges, which have an abrupt
transition. An agricultural field with an adjacent hardwood tree border with no understory plants is a
good example of a hard edge.
Managing an edge habitat requires long-term planning and a good knowledge of your forest. Look for naturally occurring edges, which often exist where soils change. Vegetation that grows on one soil type could differ in size and species or may be thicker or thinner than vegetation on adjacent soil types. Changes in moisture also can produce naturally occurring transitions. Artificial edge can be created by management activities. For example, if you are harvesting timber, you can leave some trees around the edges of the harvest to blend in with the neighboring stands. Agricultural practices often offer many potential edge opportunities at the boundary of field and forest.
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A timber harvest should be strategically positioned so that a desirable amount of edge is created. A long,
thin, and irregularly shaped timber harvest has more edge than a square or circular area. However, it
might be a good idea to avoid creating too much edge. Some wildlife species require large, contiguous
blocks of forest in their habitat. You can talk with a wildlife biologist and decide how much edge you
need for the wildlife you are interested in managing.
Forest fragmentation occurs when large areas of timberland are broken up into smaller, non-contiguous forests by deforestation practices. Fragmentation can have a severe impact on wildlife when there is not enough food, water, and cover remaining in each residual forest block. In these cases, wildlife may need to move from one forest to another. An effective way to help wildlife move between areas is to provide a travel route, or corridor. Corridors connecting forest tracts include field borders, fencerows or hedgerows, buffers between harvest areas, and streamside management zones. Protecting and creating corridors will be an important aspect of wildlife management as forests become more fragmented.
Ground nesting cover is needed by many wildlife species and can be developed next to mature forests. Nesting cover for turkey and quail might consist of a combination of native grasses along the forest edge. Nesting cover in your forest could also serve as a food resource after the breeding season. Regardless of the type of vegetation that you plant for nesting cover, the area must have dimension and not be a long thin strip. It is more difficult for predators to effectively hunt a large patch of grass than a thin strip.
Strategy #3: Work with Neighbors to Manage Wildlife in the Local Area
Your forest probably contains many different species of wildlife. Some of these animals will live their entire life within your forest. However, unless you have a very large property, many of the animals using your forest will travel onto neighboring properties. Perhaps these animals can find better food or water on the neighboring property. The adjacent forest may contain better cover or the animals may be looking for a mate. There are many reasons why wildlife will cross property boundaries.
Because the normal home range of many wildlife species in your forest is large, they undoubtedly will cross property boundaries. Thus, management activities on neighboring properties can affect much of the wildlife throughout the area. It is a good idea to work with your neighbors when possible to manage wildlife in the local area. You can talk to your neighbors about wildlife objectives and consider forming a community landowner cooperative to manage wildlife.
The first step in influencing the management activities in a neighbor's forest is to discuss ownership objectives, particularly those relating to wildlife habitat. It is a good idea for you to know what wildlife species the neighbor wants to encourage. It is also a good idea to know what timber harvests or other forest management activities the neighbor may be planning. You can then begin planning how to compensate for any food, water, or cover that might be affected by changes occurring in adjacent habitat. You may be able to work with your neighbor to coordinate the forestry activities on both properties so that good wildlife habitat is maintained. A good relationship with neighbors is certainly an asset when attempting to manage wildlife outside your property.
The second step in managing local wildlife habitat might be to form a community landowner cooperative. This is a good alternative if all landowners in an area have similar wildlife management objectives and have good working relationships. This cooperative might be an informal group that meets periodically to discuss wildlife objectives and forest management plans. The cooperative could also be a more formal group, based on written agreements that outline how local wildlife habitat will be managed. The type of cooperative you form will depend on the local landowners' feelings about property rights and their commitment to wildlife management.
If you form a cooperative, it should enlist the services of natural resource professionals to help develop management plans for the land in the cooperative. Your cooperative should at least have a forester and a wildlife biologist to provide management advice. If all members of the cooperative use the same forester and biologist to help manage their individual forests, then the advice to your cooperative would be based on a complete knowledge and understanding of the entire land base. The biologist and forester could help schedule and locate timber sales, prescribed burns, and other forest management activities for the cooperative.
Formal cooperatives can be binding and difficult to maintain. Thus, this type of cooperative requires a strong commitment from all members. Members should have good relations and understand and respect the ownership objectives of other members. The cooperative might collect an annual fee to pay for the services of a consulting forester and biologist. Most importantly, however, the members of the cooperative must have faith in the advice of professionals who help to manage the property. There should be no unanswered questions about the intentions of management activities initiated by the cooperative.
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