Wildlife Habitat

Learn About the Wild Creatures in Your Xeric Garden

Over the following decade I’m happy I’ve been proven wrong.

I steadily find ways to amuse myself with rustic crafts made out of twigs, new and novel ways to plant Drought Smart Plants and amazingly enough, the entertaining and sometimes frenzied activity of the xeric garden wildlife.

Even when the quiet and peaceful tranquility ebbs in for a few minutes, now I know that eventually, something interesting will happen – a new migratory songbird will arrive, a different insect fly by, or I’ll spot a lizard or snake basking on a warm rock wall.

With the wildlife in mind, I built a butterfly garden and planted butterfly food plants so that I can enjoy all phases of their life cycle.

Learning more about insect identification is a fascinating sideline to growing many nectar rich plants.

Now, instead of yearning for the grandeur of the far vista, watching thunderclouds muscling up over distant mountain peaks, I have learned to focus on the close up – to see the trees among the forest.

My values haven’t changed, but I now recognize the urgency of the need to protect the delicately balanced ecosystem, not fritter it wantonly and thoughtlessly.

Nature has an astounding variety and number of plants, animals, amphibians, birds and insects to find homes for.

A wildlife habitat can range from a group of only a few creatures and plants, to millions of different animals combining into a tightly knit ecosystem.

The different types of wildlife habitats are endless.

The sensitive nature of the ecology means that one small change in population density, disease outbreak, climate change or other unknown factor can change the habitat forever.

Each creature, from tiny to enormous, has a role to play in the ecosystem.

One organisms waste is another ones food, and the cycle continues unbroken in a successful ecology.

Wildlife habitats are a closed system of perfectly adapted creatures, each one contributing their waste as food; in turn eating other creatures or their waste and finally, their bodies to be used by other creatures.

Nothing goes to ‘waste’ – it’s all used, in one form or another.

Here are a few things I’ve done to save endangered wildlife habitat:

• I’m currently applying to have Blue Fox Farm certified as a wildlife habitat to protect this area for the wildlife that has perfectly adapted to the conditions here.

• I’m a member of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

• The Wilderness Committee is busy in the Okanagan, getting a national park to protect endangered habitat for wildlife to pass through parliament. I’ve signed a petition to help make the park a reality.

• I was part of a movement to move the main high voltage power line across the series of lakes at Tatla Springs at Tatla Lake in the Chilcotin so swans wouldn’t hit them and be killed.

I personally retrieved three swans who hit the line, one was still alive and went to the Raptor Rehabilitation Center in Williams Lake but subsequently died, the others died after being electrocuted.

After a lot of letter writing and haggling, B.C. Hydro finally agreed to put the power line underground along Highway 20, and the swans can now take off and land in safety. Tatla Springs Marsh was given official status as a protected wetland.

If you care about wildlife habitat and saving endangered ecosystems, please consider joining with other concerned citizens and make our voices heard by the government; and in your little corner of the ecosystem protect your own wildlife habitat.

go to Drought Smart Plants home page

Xeric Garden Wildlife

Wildlife Trees

Wetlands

Habitat Edges

Wildlife Palace