This document provides information on gardening and habitat restoration with native wildlife species in mind. It discusses key habitats and species for the Willamette Valley ecoregion of Oregon, threats they face like invasive species and land use changes, and recommended conservation actions. These include maintaining existing oak woodlands, controlling invasive plants, and restoring habitat elements like native plants, snags, and downed logs to provide food, cover, and other needs for native species. The document cautions that habitat work should avoid creating ecological traps or supporting invasive or undesirable species, and encourages maintaining wildlife's natural behaviors.

1. Gardening with habitat for wildlife Oregon Conservation Strategy –
species in mind
Oregon
Department
http://www.dfw.state.or.us/conservationstrategy/
of Fish and
Wildlife
Ecoregions Habitats and Species
Six Key Conservation Issues
For each ecoregion (8):
• Characteristics (ecology & • Land use changes
economy)
• Invasive species
• Strategy species and habitat • Changes in fire, flood regimes
types
• Water quality and quantity
• Conservation issues and • Barriers to fish and wildlife
actions
movement
• Conservation success stories • Institutional barriers to voluntary
• Conservation Opportunity
conservation
Areas maps and profiles
Willamette Valley Ecoregion Willamette Valley Ecoregion
Strategy Habitats Strategy Species (59)
• California myotis (bat)
• Western gray squirrel
• Grasslands • Northern red-legged frog
• Northwestern pond turtle
• Oak woodlands
• Western painted turtle
• Riparian • Chinook salmon
• Winter steelhead
• Wetlands and wet prairies
• Acorn woodpecker
• Little willow flycatcher
• Western bluebird
• Western meadowlark
• Fender’s blue butterfly
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2. Oak Woodlands: Why Care? Oak Woodlands: Threats
• Benefits to wildlife • Land use conversion
– Used by 200+ species • Fire suppression
• Ecosystems services • Invasive species
Oak Woodlands and how we can employ
the Strategy’s Habitat Approach Recommended Conservation Actions
• Characterized by open canopy • Maintain existing oak woodlands
dominated by oak • Control encroaching conifers
– 30-60% tree cover • Address over-crowding
• Common plant associates: • Re-establish oak woodlands
– Ponderosa pine, Big leaf maple, OR
ash, snowberry, poison oak, hazel, • Control invasive plant species
serviceberry, sword fern, grasses • Restore understory plants
• Historically abundant; <4% remains
Broad scale benefits of functioning
Opportunities within existing
systems
woodlands • Nutrient cycling
• Provide for basic wildlife needs by protecting • Pollination
& enhancing food, cover, water, space • Germination
• Identify and address limiting factors • Seed dispersal
• Manage habitats to provide multiple stages of • Soil generation
succession • Habitats & niches
• Minimize fragmentation • Predators on pests
– Decrease edges • Excrete natural fertilizer
– Provide corridors between patches • Wildfire risk reduction
• Soil stabilization
• Increase habitat diversity
• Water quality, quantity, runoff storage
– Species & structure
– Snags and downed logs
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3. Habitat, a biological definition Habitat is:
Habitat is the combination of factors • Food
• biotic • Water
• abiotic • Cover
• necessary to produce • Space
– Occupancy, survival, and reproduction by members • Other species-specific
of a given species needs
Native species and species
habitat requirements
• Each species’ habitat requirements reflects the
native communities in which the species evolved
• Our efforts to provide habitat for native species
will be most successful when we can provide
native plants, structures, and habitat elements
Structure:
The perils of fragmentation
Complex can be good!
• Reduced interior area
“hard” vs. “soft” edges
• Increased edge area
• Incursion of exterior
conditions in the interior
• Increased permeability of
interior to predators,
competitors, invasives
• Species-specific
minimum patch size may
be lost
• Lost connectivity among
patches
• Others…
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4. Cottonwood galleries along the main rivers
are the sole source of declining Great Blue Build it (or protect it) and they
Heron Rookeries
will come…
>>We can provide necessary elements of
habitat for native species…
Invertebrates Amphibians
• Butterflies, native pollinators, and other • Maintain wet areas, native water & flows
beneficials • No (non-native) fish!
• Some require very species-specific, life • No bullfrogs!
stage-specific plants • Minimize disturbance – Some species
– Example: Fender’s blue butterfly and Kincaid’s lupine
cannot endure any handling
• Others are more generalist and can
benefit from a broad range of pollen and
nectar-bearing plants
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5. Reptiles Herpetiles to consider:
• Structure or cover for thermoregulation • Pacific tree frog
– Typically need some structure for • Red-legged frog
overwintering • Western newts (permanent ponds)
– Turtles especially: • Long-toed salamanders (ephemeral ponds)
• Basking structure Reptiles:
• Protect from non-native predation – bullfrogs on
• Western pond turtle
young!
• Protect from non-native, invasive competitors • Western painted turtle
• Garter snakes (They eat slugs!)
• No persecution
Birds Birds
WV has forest species, grassland species, and • Do not create an ecological trap
edge specialists – Remember to consider – Non-native/invasive competitors?
species-specific needs
– Non-native predators?
• Food
– via choice of plants – Availability of cover near food and water
– Feeders – Pro’s and con’s
• Water
• Cover and complex structure
– via choice and variety of plants
• Species preferences for nesting materials
• Some will use nest boxes, but size, type, and location
matters! Consult a book or site to learn more,
e.g.,www.birdhouses101.com
Mammals
• Small terrestrial and arboreal mammals
– Food: Several are generalists and
omnivorous, but others are more specialized
– Food, cover, and structure in proximity so as
to decrease predation
Think of songbirds, but
• Example: Squirrels need fruit and seed-bearing trees and
don’t forget the shrubs, esp. oaks. They need big enough trees to allow drey
woodpeckers, owls, and and nest-building, along with larder hoards. They are preyed
raptors! on by avian and terrestrial predators, so cover needs to be
close by at all times.
– Avoid creating artificial sources of predation
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6. Mammals Be careful of:
• Bats
– Roost structures
– Vegetation that provides habitat for insect
food sources
– Water – Some will use
– Low- to no-disturbance, especially of
maternity colonies
– Very sensitive to pesticides
Beware of creating hazards or
Ecological traps
creating new problems…
• It “looks” like habitat to an animal, but
• What risks and
either:
opportunities do you
– Something crucial is missing
see here?
– Something is present that reduces or prevents
– For wildlife?
survival and reproduction
• Animals don’t “know” that it is a trap
– For you?
– For your neighbors?
• Animals living in ecological traps are “lost”
from the population:
– abundance, genes, connectivity of populations
?
Are we creating risks? Invasive Species
• Increased risk of predation by “Nonnative organisms that cause economic or
– Native or non-native species environmental harm and are capable of spreading to
new areas of the state. Invasive species does not
• Examples: house cats, koi/goldfish, supplemented include humans, domestic livestock or nonharmful
native predators exotic organisms.”
• Increased food or habitat factors for
undesirable species
• Examples: rats & spilled bird food, too much cover
around stems of rodent-vulnerable shrubs & trees,
bird food that increases starling populations
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7. Invasive Species:
Keep Wildlife WILD!
Risks posed for native species
• Changes to ecosystem functions
• Loss of biodiversity
• Reduction in habitat quality or
direct habitat loss
• Direct competition
• Direct mortality (e.g., predation)
• Introduction of disease
Habituation can be deadly, But remember: With
damaging, and dangerous forethought, your choices can
• “Fed bears are dead bears” • Provide habitat and connectivity for native
• A wild animal is always a wild animal species
• Habituation often centers on food • Increase ecological services in your
– Decreased fear of humans garden:
– Increased aggressiveness for food or space – Examples: pollination, predation on insects
– Competition/elimination of domestic • Increase your enjoyment and the value of
“competitors” YOUR habitat while still reaping gardening
– Disease or waste products rewards!
– Prey species attract predators • Contribute to maintaining Oregon’s natural
– Other risks… riches
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