Washington Residents’ Contributions to Wildlife Habitat Around the Home: Participation and Expenditures in 2022

This report presents estimates of participation rates of Washingtonians who engaged in activities that provide habitat to wildlife in 2022. It also shares estimates of the amount of money Washingtonians spent on these activities. The report focuses on six specific measures of participation of spending:

1. Participation in feeding birds around the home (i.e., within a one-mile radius of a person’s residence).
2. Expenditures on:
   1. nest boxes, bird houses, and baths and
   2. food for birds, including commercially packaged and other bulk foods.
3. Participation in maintaining plantings, such as shrubs or agricultural crops, around the home for the benefit of wildlife.
4. Expenditures on installing and maintaining plantings around the home for the benefit of wildlife.
5. Participation in maintaining natural areas, such as wooded lots, hedgerows, or open fields of at least one-quarter acre for the benefit of wildlife, not including farmland.
6. The acreage of natural area maintained for the benefit of wildlife.

The report closes with a discussion of some of WDFW’s programs that support the provision of fish and wildlife habitat on private lands. These estimates should be considered an addendum to an earlier report on participation, demographics, and spending estimates for fishing, hunting, and wildlife watching in Washington published earlier in 2024 (Van Deynze 2024).