Center for Land Use Education

The Land Use Tracker
Volume 2, Issue 2
Fall 2002

IN THIS ISSUE:

	SITING RURAL DEVELOPMENT - TO PROTECT LAKES AND STREAMS AND DECREASE ROAD COSTS
	Wildlife and Habitat in a Comprehensive Plan
	Calendar of Events
	Article Submissions
	Our Staff
	what's new at the center
	Contact Us by E-mail
CLUE Homepage

PREVIOUS ARTICLE | FRONT PAGE | NEXT ARTICLE

Wildlife and Habitat in a Comprehensive Plan

by Jennifer Skoloda

What draws tourists by the thousands, cleans our air and water, keeps our soils fertile and soothes our souls? The answer is - wildlife and wildlife habitat! It might be easy to overlook planning for wildlife and wildlife habitat because it is only one �sub-element� of the Agriculture, Natural and Cultural Resource Element required by Wisconsin�s Comprehensive Planning law but wildlife and habitat issues impact our communities and human life on a basic level. A thoughtful examination of wildlife and wildlife habitat can provide much of the information and analysis that a community needs to address, consider, and implement the natural resource portions of its comprehensive plan.

The Center for Land Use Education (CLUE) is producing a 3-part series of presentations to demonstrate the importance of planning for wildlife. The first documents some of the more important values of wildlife and describes techniques for determining community understanding of those values and support for wildlife and habitat protection. The second explains the major threats facing wildlife and presents seven habitat protection guidelines that communities can follow when making planning decisions. The third presentation uses real data and GIS technology to illustrate how a county might use these guidelines to identify important habitat and effective management tools.

PowerPoint presentations will be available October 1. Please contact us if you are interested in presenting them or having them presented. Following are examples of information contained in each of the series.

Part 1: The Values of Wildlife and Habitat

Traditionally when people think of wildlife they think of vertebrates - primarily mammals and birds. They might even include reptiles, amphibians and fish. However, a broader definition includes invertebrates and other organisms that make significant contributions to our communities. Think of wildlife as: all organisms living in a natural, undomesticated state and wildlife habitat as: the ecosystem in which an organism lives and which provides for the organism�s need for food, cover, water, space, reproduction and security (Johnson, 1999).

VALUES

Wildlife and habitat encompass a wide variety of resources that have huge impacts on human life. Humans appreciate wildlife for both utilitarian and intrinsic values:

Part 2: Threats To Wildlife And Guidelines For Habitat Planning

The biggest threats to wildlife are loss of habitat quantity and quality. Part 2 illustrates local impacts on habitat caused by:

• Fragmentation

• Invasive species

• Pollution

FRAGMENTATION

Fragmentation is the breaking up of larger �patches� of habitat into smaller ones. It impacts wildlife by decreasing population sizes, isolating habitat patches and creating more edge.

Smaller populations - A decrease in habitat patch size results in smaller wildlife populations that are less likely to persist/survive for a long time than larger populations because smaller populations are more susceptible to catastrophic events (like disease or habitat destruction by fire) than larger populations.

Habitat isolation - Fragmentation isolates habitat patches (figure 1); wildlife movements between patches decrease. As movements decrease, inbreeding and catastrophic events can cause populations to decline or disappear over time. Smaller more isolated patches also support less diversity (fewer numbers of species) than larger patches.

Edge Effects - �Edge� is where two dissimilar habitats meet. For example, the interface between forest and grassland or farm field is an edge.

When habitat patches are fragmented, the linear feet of edge increase favoring species that prefer edge habitat and often increasing predation and parasitism that need core habitat species (figure 2).

SEVEN GUIDELINES FOR WILDLIFE AND HABITAT PROTECTION

1. Maintain large, intact areas of native vegetation

2. Maintain habitat redundancy (duplication)

3. Protect/provide corridors between habitat patches

4. Protect rare/critical habitats

5. Link local and regional habitat plans

6. Maintain ecological processes (fire, flood) in natural areas

7. Balance human use and wildlife needs in protected/natural areas

Guideline 1: Maintain large, intact areas of native vegetation
Large reserves/patches typically capture and preserve a greater diversity and quality of habitats. In addition, species with large home ranges, interior dwelling species, and larger populations can be supported in large patches, unlike smaller patches.

Guideline 2: Maintain habitat redundancy (duplication)
Redundancy is an essential component of healthy ecosystems. If several reserves/patches exist in an area, one of them may be disturbed or lost without seriously threatening the integrity of the wildlife community.

Guideline 3: Protect/provide corridors between habitat patches
Corridors increase the amount of habitat available to species by allowing movement between patches � providing for seasonal movements and dispersal of offspring. This increases the effective population size for a species and reduces likelihood of local extinctions caused by genetic problems resulting from inbreeding.

Guideline 4: Protect critical and rare landscape elements
Protect less common vegetation types or landscape features such as wetlands and shorelines because these habitats contribute disproportionately to habitat diversity. The diversity of species in an area depends on a diversity of habitats.

Guideline 5: Link local and regional habitat plans
Knowing the status of species and habitat beyond political boundaries is important for good planning because species that are rare locally may be regionally abundant and species that are locally abundant may be rare regionally. Plan linkage also allows units of government to cooperate in program funding and administration.

Guideline 6: Maintain ecological processes in protected areas
Passive protection against development is often not enough to maintain native communities of plants and animals. Disturbance is a fundamental part of the life cycle of many native species. For example, prairie species need fire or grazing to maintain species composition, Jack Pine needs fire to open its cones and spread seed, floodplain forests need floods to remove competing vegetation. Invasive species threaten native plants, animals and communities. To maintain these native communities invasive species need to be controlled.

Guideline 7: Balance human use and wildlife needs
Wildlife is sensitive to human activity and expends energy avoiding human contact. This can be detrimental to animals especially during stressful times of the year - particularly breeding season and when they are caring for their young. Consider limiting or excluding high impact, disruptive uses during vulnerable/critical times of the year.

Part 3:  An Example Wildlife And Habitat Protection Plan � Geographic Information Systems

In applying the seven guidelines, consider these two steps:
Step 1: Determine what is already protected/in existence.
Step 2: Determine what areas need to be improved, expanded or created in order to effectively protect wildlife and habitat. (Note: CLUE will suggest processes and resources communities can use to select criteria for making these determinations.)

And for each guideline, consider the following:

Guideline 1: Maintain large reserves (intact areas of native vegetation)
First determine whether there are any reserves, the size and dimensions of the reserves and their level of protection. Then determine if these areas might need to be expanded or created and where this would be possible. Criteria for this should be decided on by each community with the help of local experts.

Guideline 2: Maintain habitat redundancy
From the areas mapped above determine which habitat types are or are not represented more than once in currently protected areas. If there are habitat types that are not represented or are under-represented determine possibilities for protection.

Guideline 3: Protect/provide corridors between habitat patches
Examine the connections between existing reserves and identify areas that do not connect with any other reserves.

Guideline 4: Protect critical and rare landscape elements
Establish locations of critical and rare species, communities or other unique landscape elements and evaluate whether they are sufficiently protected/represented in protected areas.

Guideline 5: Link local and regional habitat plans
Demonstrate relevance to other regional plans. Look at Regional Planning Commission and state ecosystem plans or corridor plans.

Guideline 6: Maintain ecological processes in protected areas
Note which protected areas will need active management. Identify habitat types that need floods or fire. Select criteria to identify areas where these processes are economically and socially/politically acceptable.

Guideline 7: Balance human use and wildlife needs
Evaluate types of recreation allowed and level of use within protected areas. Make sure there are appropriate low use areas reserved for wildlife.

Other elements to include/consider from the Comprehensive Planning Law:

Housing - Use maps/knowledge to steer development away from areas important to wildlife. The maps may also be useful in locating areas suitable for conservation developments.

Transportation - Route roads and other transportation corridors through the least sensitive habitats and provide corridors over or under multi-lane highways to facilitate the movement of wildlife.

Utilities - Strategically located habitat reserves can also function as storm water detention or infiltration areas to protect surface water and groundwater supplies.

Parks and Open Space - Incorporate wildlife habitat in parks and open space in urban settings.

Historical and Cultural Resources - Look for opportunities to protect habitat associated with historical or cultural resources.

Merritt Bussierre, Michael Dresen, Anna Haines and Pat Robinson have reviewed this article for form and content. Any errors, mistakes and omissions remain the responsibility of the author.

Resources:

Duerksen, Christopher J., Donald L. Elliott, N. Thompson Hobbs, Erin Johnson, James R. Miller. 1997. Habitat Protection Planning: Where the Wild Things Are. American Planning Association. Report Number 470/471.

Johnson, Craig W. 1999. Conservation Corridor Planning at the Landscape Level: Managing for Wildlife Habitat. USDA National Biology Handbook, Part 614.4. 190-vi-NBH.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Calling all Wildlife! Wildlife Management Basics. PUBL-WM-216.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 1998. Wisconsin Wildlife Primer. Wildlife Habits and Habitat. PUBL-WM-220-98.

 

PREVIOUS ARTICLE | FRONT PAGE | NEXT ARTICLE