enhancing wildlife on private...

Enhancing Wildlife on Private Woodlands

EC 1122 • Reprinted June 2002 $2.00

D.S. deCalesta

MULTIPLE USE

ContentsWhat is enhancement? ................. 2

How do we get enhancement? ...... 2

Enhancing habitat ......................... 2Habitat diversity .......................... 2Habitat quantity ........................... 2Habitat placement ........................ 3Special requirements .................... 4

Constraints on enhancement .......... 4Conifer damage ........................... 4Conflicts with timber production ..... 5Neighbors ................................... 6

Matching what you want with what you've got ................. 6

What wildlife do you want? .......... 6What habitat(s) do you have? ...... 7Make a plan ............................... 7Where to go for help ....................7

For more information .................... 8

David S. deCalesta, formerExtension wildlife specialist,Oregon State University.

Wildlife is an integral part of woodlands. Where there are forests,meadows, and streams, there is wildlife. Wildlife means manythings to people, but for purposes of our discussion we’ll divide

it into three basic categories. The most common category is game—birdsand mammals that one hunts for recreation, fur, and food.

Another category is pest animals—those that damage conifer seedlings,seeds, and in some cases larger trees.

A third category, a catch-all, is nongame species. This includes song-birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other animals that are neither hunted nordo they cause problems. Rather, they are observed by birdwatchers, pho-tographers, hikers, and others enjoying outdoor recreation. Rare or endan-gered species such as the bald eagle and spotted owl usually are includedin this category.

One of the directing forces behind managing natural resources, particu-larly on small areas such as woodlots, is the benefit received. What sort ofbenefit(s) can you expect from investing time and money in wildlife?

If you’re a hunter managing for game, your benefit would be harvestingmore and/or bigger (i.e., trophy) animals. Also, perhaps, if your acreage issufficiently large (600+ acres, or approximately 1 square mile), you mightprofit from leasing the right to hunt on your land. If you’re a birdwatcher,your objective is to spot more birds and/or more bird species.

This publication discusses managing game and nongame wildlife inorder to increase people’s use of them. Pest wildlife is discussed only tothe extent that land management for game and nongame species does notlead to increased pest damage. Controlling pest animal damage to conifersis covered in Understanding and Controlling Deer Damage in YoungPlantations, EC 1201, and Controlling Pocket Gopher Damage to ConiferSeedlings, EC 1255 (see page 8).

Whether you manage land for game, nongame, or pest species, theobjective is to increase, decrease, or maintain numbers of wildlife.Increased use of wildlife usually necessitates increasing numbers or qualityof wildlife available for use, which is known as wildlife enhancement.

Archival Copy. For current information, see the OSU Extension Catalog:https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu

2 THE WOODLAND WORKBOOK

What is enhancement?Enhancing wildlife populations means

causing an increase in number and/orquality of animals within those populations.The objective might be, for example, toproduce more deer or quail, to have moretrophy-class animals, or to increase diver-sity (the number of species).

How do we get enhancement?All wildlife species are products of their

environment or habitat. Each species hasspecific habitat requirements that aredifferent from those of other species. Thehabitat provides basic life requirementsincluding food, protection from enemiesand weather, and a place to rear young.

As the amount of specific habitats andthe diversity of habitats increases, diversityand numbers of wildlife species on a givenpiece of land also increase. So, the question“How do you enhance wildlife species?”can be rephrased as “How do you enhancehabitat?”

Enhancement must provide foryear-round wildlife needs. For some spe-cies, such as deer and elk in eastern Oregon,quality and quantity of some habitat ele-ments vary seasonally. The quality andquantity of forage in summer and falldetermine the amount of fat animals store inpreparation for the tough winter.

If forage is not plentiful and of highquality on summer ranges, the animalsmight starve on winter ranges where foodtypically is of low quality and quantity.Also, if deer and elk are not in primecondition in fall, they might not breed, andfawn and calf crops could fail in the spring.

Enhancing habitat

Habitat diversityVegetation (trees, shrubs, grasses)

provides wildlife habitat. Different specieslive in different places within this structure.Various birds, such as some warblers, liveonly in the tops of conifer trees. Here they

find food (insects), build nests, and takeshelter from weather and predators. Otherspecies, such as pocket gophers, live under-ground in grassy meadows.

Some species, such as certain frogs andsalamanders, have a special requirement forthe riparian zone—the moist, often forestedarea alongside streams. Most species, how-ever, including deer, quail, and chippingsparrows, require combinations of habitat—meadows and other forest openings to feedin and timber for breeding sites and forprotection from weather and predators.

Habitat variety is natural when naturalevents such as fire, windthrow, and insectand disease attacks open portions of for-ested areas. These areas usually are reveg-etated in stages, beginning with grasses,progressing to shrubs, then seedling trees,saplings, mature trees, and finallyold-growth trees.

With each successive stage, differentcombinations of wildlife species likewiseappear, persist awhile, and then decline(Figure 1a). The diversity of wildlifespecies depends on habitat diversity associ-ated with these stages. Providing a diversityof habitats (and thus a diversity of wildlifespecies) requires a diversity of areas indifferent stages of vegetative development.

Clearcut logging works like nature inopening forest lands and beginning theprogression of vegetative stages, startingwith grassy meadows. Reforestation (plant-ing conifer seedlings) and brush controlprovide other vegetative stages, but the timesequence is shortened (Figure 1b). The laststage, old growth, usually is not attained.

Habitat quantityCan I grow deer on a 10-acre plot? How

many acres does a covey of quail require?What quantities of habitat support viable,reproducing populations of wildlife species?The diversity and abundance of wildlifepopulations that a given parcel of landsupports are directly related to the amountand kinds of land available.

Table 1 (page 5) gives minimum spacerequirements of representative species. Deerrequire a minimum of 30 acres per animalof combined forest lands and openings.

Quail require a minimum of 5 to 10 acresper bird of open meadows, with brushy


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areas interspersed within the meadows andadjacent forest lands. Songbirds, such aschipping sparrows, require about 5 acresper bird, again of open areas adjacent toforested acreage.

The size and timing of timber harvest canbe a major tool in simultaneous manage-ment of timber and wildlife. Instead ofcreating large (more than 100 acres)clearcuts in single cuttings, many smallercuts can be spread over a number of years(40 to 60 acres could be cut every 5 to7 years). This would even out the flow ofdollar returns from timber and the supply offorage and habitat diversity for wildlife.Thinning timber also provides forage andhabitat diversity.

Habitat placementWildlife species use different habitats to

meet different needs (openings for food,forested areas for cover). These differenthabitats must be close enough to each otherthat wildlife can move readily from one tothe other with minimal exposure to preda-tion and weather. Wildlife species withsmall home ranges (songbirds, quail,grouse, rabbits, and deer and elk in westernOregon) must have these different habitatsclose together (mere hundreds of feet forquail and rabbits and usually less than0.25 mile for deer and elk).

Problems may arise in eastern Oregonwith animals such as deer and elk. They

Figure 1a.—Wildlife species that live in a natural, unmanaged forest.350 years

HERB &SHRUB

YOUNG

MATURE & OLD GROWTH

rabbit

quail

deer

songbirds

songbirds

grouse

squirrel

woodpecker

flying squirrelsongbirds

songbirds

red tree mouse

spotted owl

30 years 70 years 100 years 150 years

HERB &SHRUB

YOUNG

rabbit

quaildeer

grouse

squirrel

350 years

songbirds

60 years10yrs

60 years60 years60 years60 years 10yrs

10yrs

10yrs

10yrs

Figure 1b.—Wildlife species that live in a managed forest.



have seasonal habitats that are milesapart—summer range at higher elevationsin mountain meadows, winter range downon sagebrush flats. Preserving migrationcorridors used for traveling to and fromsuch seasonal ranges is another habitatrequirement. If these migrating animalshave to cross many logging roads, they areexposed to hunters and vehicles.

Deer and elk might be hunted when theyare on summer range, on winter range, ortraveling on migration corridors. If yourproperty includes only one of these season-ally used habitats, your management ofthese animals could be influenced bymanagement on land over which you haveno control.

Enhancement doesn’t stop at merelyproviding amounts, diversity, and habitatplacement. Wildlife have additional habitatneeds, primarily food and breeding places,that you can manage and thus indirectlyinfluence wildlife numbers and well-being.

Special requirementsManaging forest lands for timber produc-

tion generally provides a variety of habitats.However, practices such as brush controland snag removal alter or remove specialhabitats of some wildlife species. In somecases, one management practice can pro-vide multiple habitat requirements, such asfood and cover, for several species.

Leaving a few standing snags and allow-ing logs to remain on the ground providenesting sites (cavities in snags) and a foodsource (insects that burrow into decayingwood) for birds. Slash often is removedfrom clearcut sites, usually by burning.Small amounts of this slash instead couldbe piled for quail and rabbits to use asprotective cover, breeding sites, and foodsources (berries and leaves).

Other management practices mightprovide for only a single need of wildlife.The rapid establishment of conifer seed-lings on forested openings (clearcuts, smallmeadows, etc.) within 3 to 10 years greatlyshortens the time that these areas wouldotherwise provide forage for deer (7 to25 years). One way to provide additionalforage for deer in the shortened time span isto plant forage on parts of clearcuts. Deer

especially like grass and legume seedings.Quail, grouse, and rabbits also will takeadvantage of this additional food source.

You can’t always maintain snags andother dead standing trees as nesting sites forcavity-nesting birds and mammals such asflying squirrels. However, you can buildnest boxes for bluebirds, other songbirds,squirrels, and wood ducks and place theboxes in appropriate locations as an alterna-tive to natural nest sites.

The key to providing special require-ments is to identify those animals you wishto enhance, determine whether they havespecial requirements that current manage-ment does not provide and, if so, implementthose activities that will benefit the desiredpopulations.

Constraintson enhancement

One manages forest lands for a variety ofreasons—for timber production and recre-ation as well as for wildlife. The manner ofmanagement on neighboring private orpublic lands can influence wildlife on yourland. You must account for these factors inyour management plan to avoid conflictsand to increase wildlife abundance.

Conifer damageGame such as deer and elk can damage

conifer seedlings. Managing habitat toenhance populations of these animalsshould not increase amounts of damage.However, habitat enhancement couldincrease populations of some animals to alevel where they deplete normal foodsources and begin to damage conifers.

Planting forage crops for deer mightincrease populations of pest species such asmice; they girdle conifer seedlings and cancause significant economic loss. Buildingbrush piles provides food and cover forquail and rabbits; however, if you have toomany brush piles close to conifer seedlingsand not much forage available in winter,you could find the rabbits cause significantdamage to the seedlings.


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Conflicts with timber productionOften the primary product on forest lands

is timber. In some cases, increasing habitatfor wildlife will reduce the yield of timberproducts. Keeping meadows open toproduce deer forage precludes producingtimber for market. Maintaining stands ofold-growth forest for species such asspotted owls and pileated woodpeckers

prevents the short-term rotation (50 to80 years) required to maximize timberproduction on forest lands.

Maximizing diversity of wildlife speciesrequires maximizing diversity and locationof habitat sites. Altering vegetation tomaximize diversity will lower production oftimber on forest lands.

Table 1.—Habitat requirements of representative wildlife species.

Wildlife Representative Required habitats Special habitatgroup species and acreages requirements

Meadow wildlife California quail, Open areas with grasses Brush piles essentialbrush rabbit, and forbs; some shrubs (one per 2 acres)meadowlark (15 acres)

Meadow/forest Deer, elk Openings (50 acres); Migration corridorsclosed canopy (15+ years old); between seasonal rangesconifers (150 acres)

Chipmunk Opening (15 acres); second-growth timber (15 acres)

Junco, bluebird Opening (5 acres); second- Snags with nest cavitiesgrowth timber (5 acres)

Young forest Red squirrel Mixture of 15- to 75-year-old Cone-bearing treesconifer trees; understory of for foodgrasses, forbs (100 acres)

Ruffled grouse 50-50 mixture of conifers Moist streamsideand alder (15 acres)

MacGillivray’s Mixture of 15- to 75-year-oldwarbler conifers (15 acres)

Mature forest Flying squirrel Conifers 75+ years old Nest cavities in olderwildlife (100 acres); understory trees (100+ years old)

with forbs, small shrubs

Spotted owl Conifers 100+ years old(400 acres)

Pileated Conifers 100+ years old Conifer snags; minimumwoodpecker (100 acres) 20 inches diameter at

breast height (dbh) fornest trees

Riparian wildlife Salamanders, Moist, streamside vegetationfrogs, snakes with closed canopy (0.25 to

2 acres); flowing streams

Large predators Bobcat, bear, Mixtures of closed canopy Large (more thancoyote, goshawk with openings (300 to 15 inches dbh) trees

1,500 acres) for nesting or denning



NeighborsForest management on neighboring land

(private and public) could influence thewildlife on your land. If your habitat is anisland of deer management surrounded byland with few deer—such as a largeclearcut—few deer and elk will move in,and the population that’s already on yourland will have to sustain itself.

On the other hand, if the neighboringland is managed for deer and elk as well asfor other forest resources, you might beproviding an attractive area that will drawadditional animals from neighboring lands.The influx could overwhelm your ability to

keep the population low enough to preventdamage to your seedlings.

Matching what you wantwith what you’ve got

In any enhancement program, you mustmatch desired wildlife with availablehabitat(s). The first step is to determinewhat sort of wildlife you desire.

What wildlife do you want?Usually, if wildlife is to be

managed, it most likely will be foryou and your friends, with recre-ation and food as the chief values.Perhaps you wish to emphasizegame. In most cases, leasing orselling hunting rights requireslarge acreages (600+ acres) toprovide sufficient numbers ofdeer, rabbit, quail, and grouse.There is competition from federallands (U.S. Forest Service andU.S. Bureau of Land Manage-ment), where anyone can huntwithout charge and probably canfind more variety and largernumbers of game animals than ona small, private ownership.

The required habitats for gameanimals are meadows and youngforests (Table 1). This requiresthat you retain open grassymeadows with little emphasis onolder and mature forests, whichdo not provide for optimumnumbers of the primary gamespecies. Note also that you willneed fairly large acreages, espe-cially for deer—an expectedannual harvest of two to five deerfrom your land will require atleast 100 acres.

If you want other uses ofwildlife, such as birdwatching,you should increase habitatdiversity. This means providingthe full range of habitats, begin-ning with open meadows,

Figure 2.—(top) Wildlife–habitat associations on an undevelopedwoodlot and (bottom) on a developed woodlot.

songbirdssecond growth

deer

squirrel

grouse

riparian

second growth

clearcut

pasture

second growth

rabbit

quail

flying squirrel

deer

old growth

songbirds

squirrel

duck

beaverdeer

grouse

pond

marshwetland

riparian

young clearcut

meadow


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progressing through regeneration, andending with mature forests.

As for a private game reserve, selling theprivilege to observe wildlife on your landwill not bring in much money—publiclands are available for this.

The best approach is to design habitatimprovements around silvicultural prac-tices. The variety of species and numbers ofindividual species may be less than ideal,but small unused areas, riparian zones,steep slopes, and other areas where timberproduction cannot be maximized willprovide many of the requirements you needfor a diversified habitat.

What habitat(s) do you have?When you decide what kinds of wildlife

you want, identify the habitats required andcheck them against what is available.Assess the diversity of habitats and acreageof each as well as the habitats of neighbor-ing parcels of land. If the species you wantmatch the type and amount of habitat avail-able, the situation is ideal. If the matchup isnot good, you must decide whether tomanipulate the habitat to increase speciesdiversity or to increase the number ofanimals—or perhaps both.

To do this properly, an inventory of yourproperty is essential. Make a sketch of yourland with the various habitats roughed out,including acreages. Then list the wildlifespecies that each type of habitat favors.

Draw habitats that would result fromvegetation enhancement and list the wildlifethat these modified habitats would favor(Figure 2).

Make a planIf you intend to enhance vegetation to

provide a greater variety of habitats forwildlife, you must make a plan for thedesired changes. The plan should includethe location and acreage of habitat youdesire to manipulate, the expected cost ofthe enhancement, and provisions for specialhabitat requirements not provided bytypical vegetation manipulation. Table 2gives an example of such a plan.

Where to go for helpA number of public agencies and private

groups in Oregon can provide assistance.The Oregon State University ExtensionService has publications that describe howto provide special habitat needs such as nestboxes. The Oregon Department of Fish andWildlife has information on preferredhabitats of wildlife, and the USDA NaturalResources Conservation Service provideshelp with habitat manipulation. TheAudubon Society is an excellent source ofinformation on providing for special needsof songbirds; most large towns have anAudubon Society chapter.

Table 2.—Sample habitat enhancement plan.

Wildlife species Habitat enhancement and acreages Provision for special requirements

Deer, elk Provide openings in forest (20 to Seed 5- to 10-acre patches in meadows50 acres each); harvest standing with grass–legume mix.timber; suppress tree and shrubregeneration.

Rabbits, quail Provide permanent openings (15 acres)and one to two brush piles per acre.

Songbirds Maintain a good mixture of meadows, Establish nest boxes; establish a systemsecond growth, and old growth (5 to of trails through all habitats for bird10 acres for each habitat). watching.



For more informationOSU Extension publications are avail-

able from:Publication OrdersExtension & Station CommunicationsOregon State University422 Kerr AdministrationCorvallis, OR 97331-2119Fax: 541-737-0817

We offer discounts on orders of 100 ormore copies of a single title. Please call541-737-2513 for price quotes.

You can view our Publications & Videoscatalog and many of our publications on theWeb at http://eesc.oregonstate.edu

Bennett, M. Ecosystem Management:Opportunities and Implications forWoodland Owners, EC 1469 (Corvallis:Oregon State University, 1996). $1.25

DeYoe, D., D. deCalesta, and W. Schaap.Understanding and Controlling DeerDamage in Young Plantations, EC 1201(Corvallis: Oregon State University,reprinted 1999). $2.00

deCalesta, D. and K. Asman. ControllingPocket Gopher Damage to ConiferSeedlings, EC 1255 (Corvallis: OregonState University, revised 2002). $2.00

Edge, W.D. Managing Wildlife Habitats inForested Ecosystems, EC 1470(Corvallis: Oregon State University,reprinted 1998). $2.00

Other publicationsThe “Peterson Field Guide” series for birds,

mammals, animal tracks, trees andshrubs, reptiles and amphibians, insects,and bird nests (Boston: HoughtonMifflin).

deCalesta, D. and M.S. Deusen. WoodlandFish and Wildlife. 1988. This seriesincludes a number of separate publica-tions. Order from Washington StateUniversity, 1-800-723-1763 or via theWeb at http://pubs.wsu.edu, then“forestry,” then “wildlife and fish.”

© 1997 Oregon State University.

The Woodland Workbook is a collection of publications prepared by the Oregon State University Extension Service for owners andmanagers of private, nonindustrial woodlands. Information has long-range and day-to-day value for anyone interested in wisemanagement, conservation, and use of woodland properties. The Workbook is organized in sections in a 3-ring binder with tabbeddividers for each section. To order, and to get a current list of titles and prices, inquire at the OSU Extension Service office thatserves your county.

This publication was produced and distributed in furtherance of the Acts of Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914. Extension work isa cooperative program of Oregon State University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Oregon counties.

Oregon State University Extension Service offers educational programs, activities, and materials—without regard to race, color,religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, marital status, disability, and disabled veteran or Vietnam-era veteran status—as required by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of theRehabilitation Act of 1973. Oregon State University Extension Service is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Published 1983. Reprinted June 2002.


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