Backyard Wildlife Primer

1 / 4
Providing quality breeding habitat is the primary objective of wildlife management. Furnishing food and other comforts is important, but your main goal should be to create a stable, secure place in which wildlife can live and propagate.
Providing quality breeding habitat is the primary objective of wildlife management. Furnishing food and other comforts is important, but your main goal should be to create a stable, secure place in which wildlife can live and propagate.
2 / 4
Chart: recommended shrubs and trees to plant for wildlife.
Chart: recommended shrubs and trees to plant for wildlife.
3 / 4
Illustration of backyard wildlife habitats.
Illustration of backyard wildlife habitats.
4 / 4
Chart: nesting boxes and bird tenants.
Chart: nesting boxes and bird tenants.

MOTHER’S mini-manual backyard wildlife primer with suggested plant landscaping and bird nesting boxes to establish animal habitats. (See the wildlife charts in the image gallery).

A plain, rich in woods and savannahs, swarming with Bisons or buffaloes, Stags, and Virginian Deer, with Bears, and great variety of game, occupies an amazing tract, from the great lakes of Canada, as low as the gulf of Mexico; and eastward to the other great chain of mountains, the Appalachian . . .
— Thomas Pennant (1785)

Our landscape has changed since Thomas Pennant observed virgin America’s natural abundance two centuries ago. The lands composing most of Pennant’s “amazing tract,” and those to the east and west as well, have been paved, plowed, subdivided, and otherwise relegated to human use. And, in the process, we have damaged or destroyed many of the ecosystems that once supported such an awesome diversity of native wildlife.

But the good news is that loss of wildlife habitats is one problem the average person can do something about. Regardless of how much or how little space you occupy on this planet, you have the power to help make that space hospitable to wildlife with the help of this backyard wildlife primer. By developing an awareness of the needs of local birds and animals and by taking a few simple steps to help provide for those needs you can help reverse a centuries-long trend of habitat destruction.

  • Published on Sep 1, 1986
Online Store Logo
Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368