wildlife needs your help

Are you a landowner with 10 to 100 or more acres of wooded or vacation land? Do you manage a forested tract for a town, land trust, hunting club, or Audubon or other conservation chapter? If your general area don’t have much (or any) young forest, you may want to do wildlife a favor and improve people’s wildlife-oriented recreation by creating some early successional habitat on your property.

Songbirds like this cerulean warbler flit to patches of early successional habitat for the abundant food and cover there.

The first steps toward bringing a young forest component to a tract of land can seem complex and even daunting. They can also be very rewarding.

How to Get Started

Study this website to learn about this valuable and relatively uncommon habitat. Check out this nontechnical 24-page Young Forest Guide. To get a greater understanding of what young forest looks and “feels” like, visit a habitat project near you, where young forest and shrubland are making life easier – and even possible – for wildlife right now. Many such sites are open to the public.

Northeastern states have private lands habitat specialists who can provide free advice on potential projects, including how to plan and pay for habitat work. Full or partial funding may be available through state or federal programs. Contacts are listed at the bottom of the About webpage.