| Q: How did you
get the idea to write your "Landscaping for Wildlife"book?
"This book
began as collection of handouts for classes I was teaching. However,
what really got me thinking seriously about putting this book together
was when I met Steve Penland, the biologist who started WDFW's Backyard
Wildlife Sanctuary program. I read several of his papers on urban
wildlife and began volunteering my time on a new publication for the
Sanctuary Program involving landscape design ideas. I was later hired
by the Department and that publication grew into the book which includes
information for people working with and landscaping near woodlands,
wetlands, grasslands, and waterways. I started to write with the intended
audience being residents of the Puget Sound area, and that grew to Washington,
then the University of Washington Press suggested I include Oregon and
southern B.C. The book took a long time to write because it was a fit-it-in-here-and-there
sort of thing. A lot of the time was spent writing grants to get the
book published. We received grants from the Environmental Protection
Agency, the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment, the U. S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, Puget Sound Water Quality Action Team, the
Washington Wildlife and Recreation Foundation and others listed in the
front of the book. As you can see in the Acknowledgments, I had a lot
of help along the way."
Q: How did your
second book get going?
"WDFW offices
around the state get thousands of calls each year from people asking
questions about how to deal with wildlife around their homes and properties.
These aren’t landscaping for wildlife questions, they are “nuisance
wildlife” questions. I asked our regional offices, Seattle Audubon,
PAWS, the National Wildlife Federation, and other groups to send me
the handouts they distribute. There was a definite lack of current information
available so I decided to put something together.
I used the same
artists, layout and editing staff because we had so much fun and success
with the first book. “Living
with Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest” provides detailed
information on how to coexist with animals ranging from bats to woodpeckers.
It is my favorite of the two books.
A large part of
this project involved updating all our handouts that deal with wildlife
around the state. I think there are now over thirty different handouts,
which can also be found in the Living
with Washington’s Wildlife Series on our website."
Q: What's been
the reaction to the books?
"People seem
to like both books. The first printing of the landscaping book was 3,600
and 2,200 sold in the first two months. The University Press is happy
with the sales and so are we. I'm most satisfied when I hear people
are finding the books helpful. Royalties from book sales go right back
into our wildlife education programs."
Q: Describe the
things you do as a biologist.
"I worked for
the Department as an Urban Wildlife Specialist for many years. This
involved coordinating the Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary program, giving
a lot of talks to groups, and providing wildlife management recommendations
to city and county governments. Because I was in the office a lot, I
answered a lot of calls the public about wildlife. I got some unusual
calls, and those that baffled our staff at the front desk. I still get
odd calls. Just recently, a guy had muskrats moving into the engine
of his boat on Lake Washington via the exhaust pipe.
Several cooperative
projects were accomplished. One involved the Burke Museum and the Lake
Washington Audubon chapter getting birds of prey–owls, falcons,
hawks and eagles–mounted so school groups could use them for biology
and art classes. A project with Bats Northwest involved designing, installing
and monitoring bat houses which could house up to 1,000 bats each. These
designs may someday be used in large parks for mosquito control or in
areas where large maternity bat colonies are evicted from buildings.
A project I am working on right now is the Urban Wildlife Tree Education
Project. This will help increase awareness of the importance of snags,
or wildlife trees, and the need for their preservation in urban areas.
We'll be creating and distributing wildlife tree brochures, wildlife
tree identification signs, and working with volunteers to collect data.
I am more of a generalist.
I am currently a
District Wildlife Biologist and my work is divided between working on
urban issues and more traditional wildlife management. My position serves
King County, with emphasis on managing local wildlife populations and
providing wildlife recreational opportunities."
Q: Is your own
yard landscaped for wildlife?
"Yes, our four-acre
property, as you might imagine, has many wildlife-related projects in
different stages of completion. I have hibernation mounds for snakes
and nest boxes for Douglas and flying squirrels, mason bees, wood ducks,
flickers, chickadees and nuthatches. I have four bat boxes registered
with the North
American Bat House Research Project. I've constructed several snags
and brush piles. A brush pile that is partially submerged in a pond
helps meet the needs of tree frogs. The shaded brush pile with large
logs underneath provides habitat for northwest salamanders. Some very
old apple trees that haven't been carefully pruned for 15 years are
now huge elevated brush piles that shelter feeder birds from the resident
Cooper's hawk. The landscape that leads to the front door features plantings
for butterflies, hummingbirds, bumblebees and other flying pollinators.
There are two ponds on the property and I'm constructing a third."
Q: How do you
suggest getting started landscaping for wildlife in an area with more
traditional gardeners?
"One thing
I've found is that viewers need to understand the intent of the project
to accept it. Signage helps. For example, my father-in-law kept asking
me when I was going to prune those old apple trees I mentioned earlier.
After about his third inquiry I decided to put up a sign on one of the
trees–one of our Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary signs. Now when he
visits and he sees the sign and is enthusiastic about the birds in the
trees. After seeing the sign he understands the intent of me leaving
those trees unpruned.
On public sites,
when people see some kind of designation as a wildlife area, they're
more willing to accept an unkept look. What also helps is if the boundaries
of the site show signs of active maintenance, like a mow strip or a
well maintained low fence, and litter needs to be kept cleaned up. On
your own property you might want to keep the more visible areas more
tidy, and have areas that aren't so exposed be more wild. Lastly, it's
good to tell your neighbors what's going on, what your intentions are,
and it wouldn't hurt to provide them with literature from our Backyard
Wildlife Sanctuary packet."
Q: How feasible
is it in a true urban area, a city neighborhood, to garden for wildlife?
"You can garden
for wildlife anywhere, including a balcony or a rooftop. The landscape
book explains some ecological principles that are helpful when designing
landscapes for wildlife in urban areas. One of them is limiting factors.
Limiting factors are based on the knowledge that all wildlife need food,
water, shelter and space to survive. So when someone near downtown Seattle
asks why can't they attract Douglas squirrels (one of our native squirrels)
to their yard, I'll mention some limiting factors. While this species
may find the food, water and shelter they need, they no longer have
the space they require to survive and reproduce. The space that they
may have once occupied is now probably occupied by the introduced eastern
gray squirrel, which is an aggressive competitor. They also have to
contend with cars, buses, dogs and cats.
The variety and
number of species you can attract to a yard will depend on its location
and proximity to a wild area, like a green belt, a ravine, or a stormwater
retention pond. Songbirds such as chickadees and violet-green swallows
will use nest boxes, house finches, goldfinches and Steller’s
jays use seed feeders while nuthatches, bushtits, and downy woodpeckers
visit suet feeders. We see hummingbirds in the spring feeding on our
native red-flowering current and salmonberry and the Anna's hummingbird
can be seen in urban areas of western Washington year round. There several
species of butterflies and bumblebees which are very "watchable.""
Q: Do you find
people becoming more interested in natural landscapes instead of traditional
gardens?
"Yes. I think
there's a new aesthetic developing in garden design and people are realizing
that some of the old-school landscaping design and maintenance techniques
aren't appropriate, especially near creeks, wetlands, and other sensitive
areas. I'm beginning to see our urban grasslands less intensively managed
and logs, snags, and other wildlife habitat features included in public
and public and private landscapes."
Q: What are
some of the pitfalls that gardeners run into when they move toward more
natural landscaping?
"People have
to realize that when you include wildlife features in your landscape
you'll need to become the local wildlife manager. For instance, people
installing bird feeders and nest boxes need to understand that these
things need to be carefully maintained to prevent the spread of disease
and prevent unwanted species, like Norway rats, from moving in. If you
can’t properly maintain a birdbath or other wildlife feature,
I don’t recommend having them.
For a long time
people didn't know what to plant and where to get plants. However, more
sources for plants, particularly native plants, are developing all the
time. Conservation districts, Native
Plant Society and other kind of special-interest groups have plant
sales in the spring and fall. Many wholesale plant growers raising plants
for restoration projects are now finding their way into the retail market."
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