Edmonds Backyard Wildlife Habitat

Fireworks and it’s effects on Animals and Birds

During firework celebrations, only buy fireworks that don’t pose a threat to wildlife. I.e. nothing that bangs or screams and no aerial fireworks like rockets or starbursts. If you have lots of trees in your garden then it’s not a good idea to have any kind of aerial type fireworks. Birds are quietly roosting in trees all around you at night. Just because you can’t hear or see them doesn’t mean they don’t exist after sunset!

Many birds are killed through this kind of negligence each year.
Never allow your pet outside during firework celebrations. If you have animals in hutches outside and can’t move them indoors, then cover the hutches with heavy blankets. This will help reduce the noise and the animal should also remain undisturbed by flashing lights.
Keep cats and dogs indoors, close windows and blinds and create an audible diversion for them, like turning on some music - this should be reasonably loud but soothing sounds to try and divert the animal’s attention from the outside). If available in your country, get your cat or dog microchipped. Many cats and dogs run away from home in a panic when there are fireworks around and tend to get lost.

Get your pet microchipped. With a microchip implant it’s far easier to reunite an animal with its owner.

Keep an eye out for animals and birds in shock that may have fallen from trees. In most cases human intervention will add to the animals distress and we recommend you keep a watchful distance from the animal / bird and make sure no one else goes near it. If the animal continues to behave in a shocked state for more than a three or four hours or is clearly injured then you should alert your local animal welfare organization as soon as possible. They will send someone to investigate further.

Ever wonder what you are looking at on the beach?!

Purchase Salish Sea Animal or Seaweed Identification Cards!
WSU Snohomish County Beach Watchers are selling field-ready beach animal and seaweed cards
produced by Periwinkle Press. The four page set of intertidal invertebrates has most Snohomish
County animals, from ribbon worms to shore crabs. The three page set of seaweed cards are
organized by greens, reds and browns and packed full of full-color pictures, names and habitat
conditions. All pages are laminated and able to handle our Pacific Northwest weather.
Each set of cards is $16.50 (includes tax) plus $2.00 shipping and handling. Checks and cash are
accepted. Some of the purchase goes to support WSU Snohomish County Beach Watchers.
Contact Chrys Bertolotto to order a set (425) 357-6020, chrys@wsu.edu

June 22-28 is National Pollinator Week

How to Plant for Pollinators

“The neat thing about pollinator conservation is that anyone, from the owner of a golf course to an apartment dweller with a window box, can do something to help,” says Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. All it takes is to provide appropriate food and habitat for bees, butterflies and other pollinating species—and to avoid using the pesticides that harm them.

“Being pollinator-friendly also means you are being wildlife-friendly,” says Kimberly Winter, NWF’s habitats program manager. “And you are creating a sustainable ecosystem in your own backyard.”

Here are a few suggestions to get started:

For more tips, check out these sites: www.nwf.org or www.xerces.org or http://www.pollinator.org/guides.htm

Wreckreation: Off Road/All-Terrain Vehicles and Their Impact on the Environment

The Impact on Wildlife

ORV’s affect wildlife on many levels. These motorized vehicles not only kill animals by running over them, but they also create noise which disturbs the animals, and they destroy and alter the habitat the animals rely on and live in. Panthers, bears, elk, mule deer, desert tortoises, lizards, and more, have shown negative reactions to motorized off-road vehicles in their habitat. Elk avoid ATV trails in the exact same way they avoid regular roads with motorized traffic, and elk began moving when ATV’s were 2000 yards away yet tolerated hikers within 500 yards, horseback riders within 800 yards, and bicycles within 1300 yards without moving. Additionally, elk tend to run from ATV’s but walk away from hikers unless startled at close range. In a similar manner, lizards in Idaho were found in higher numbers 25 m from a less intensively used ORV trail than at 2 m from the trail. Yet in a more intensively used area of trail, there were more lizards within 2 m of the trail than at 25 m from the trail. Scientists have determined that lizards have trouble moving through dense cheatgrass, a non-native plant which grows more readily along ORV trails, thus the lizards use the road as a trail. Male flat-tailed horned lizards in CA seem to move slower after disturbances from off-road vehicles, and they also are very susceptible to being run over by the vehicles as they often walk on the ORV trails. Colorado studies have shown that elk move twice as far away from an ATV disturbance than a single pedestrian disturbance (http://www.wildlandscpr.org/files/uploads/PDFs/Final_ORV_Pet…, April 18, 2008).

Reminder: the Great American Backyard Campout is June 27th

The Great American Backyard Campout^® provides an opportunity for everyone to relive — or to experience for the first time — how much fun it is to spend a night sleeping under the stars and enjoying the sounds of nature.

Held each June, the Great American Backyard Campout^® is a national event that encourages individuals, youth, friends and families to camp out together for one night.

Each year the number of campers has steadily grown. The locations and types of campsites vary from family campouts in the backyard to public campsites with 30 or more community members. In previous years, campers have ranged in age from 3 months to 99 years old and have come from all areas of the United States.

The Great American Backyard Campout^® supports Great Outdoors Month (June), celebrating the diverse and valuable recreational opportunities across the nation — especially those linked to America’s public lands and waters, which cover more than a third of the nation’s surface and attract billions of visitors annually.

Learn more about Great Outdoors Month and other events taking place in your neighborhood by visiting www.greatoutdoorsmonth.org.

National Wildlife Federation is dedicated to connecting people to nature. Today’s children are increasingly disconnected from nature and to counteract this growing trend, we encourage parents and other caring adults to help children spend one hour each day outdoors, engaged in unstructured play and discovery. Learn more about Green Hour™.