The Call of the Wild—Wildlife Biology Member's Manual Book I

Chapter 1: Home—A Place to Hang Your Habitat

• Me and My Habitat
• Animal Basics
• Have a Habitat
• Roaming Through My Home
• A Niche in Time
• All Together Now!
• Habitat Helper
• Career Considerations
• Additional Activities
• Fair Projects/Exhibit Ideas

Close your eyes and picture your backyard. Can you see green willows sweeping the ground with their branches? Are there thousands of dandelions blowing white fluff over the grass? Look closer with your imagination. Do you see robins tugging at reluctant worms or chit-chattery squirrels? Do you see a rabbit sitting quietly near a lilac bush, or ducks flying overhead?

Animals are everywhere! Polar bears lumber across the frozen Arctic. Roadrunners scurry over hot desert sand. Bighorn sheep rule mountain meadows. These animals all have a special place, or habitat, that they call home. Many animals call your backyard their home.

Animal Basics

All animals need four things in their habitat. These are food, water, cover, and space. Without these an animal cannot survive. These habitat parts must be near each other. Food can't be too far from cover, or animals (prey) may get caught by predators (animals that eat them).

Food provides animals with the energy and nutrients they need to grow. Some animals eat plants; others eat animals. Raccoons eat just about anything in sight--garbage, corn, or insects. But the picky panda bear eats bamboo and not much else. A food web shows how energy and nutrients travel among plants and animals. The parts of the web can be divided into three main categories: producers, consumers, and decomposers.

Producers are green plants. They make their own food using water, carbon dioxide, and energy from the sun. Without producers, there would be no life on earth!

Consumers can't make their own food--they eat plants or animals. Animals that eat plants are called herbivores. Carnivores eat meat. Some carnivores such as turkey vultures eat carrion--prey that is already dead. Many animals eat a wide range of food, including grasses, fruits, fresh meat, and carrion. These animals are called omnivores. Are you an omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore?

Decomposers include insects, bacteria, and fungi. They break down dead plants and animals, turning them back into water, carbon dioxide, and minerals. These materials are released into the soil or air and used by green plants to make food. Decomposers really know a lot about recycling!

Animals also must have water to live. Muskrats eat water plants and use them for building houses. Desert lizards get all the moisture they need from plant leaves or stems.

Wildlife need cover, too--a place to escape from predators or bad weather. Some animals hide underground. Others hide in trees. Some hang from the rafters. (Do you?) Animals also need space to grow, play, find food, and mate. Some animals need only a few feet of space; others need several square miles. How much space do you need to grow?

(write your answer here)


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Have a Habitat

Different animals have different habitats. Many animals need more than one type of habitat to survive. Grizzly bears use dense forests for cover and open areas for gathering berries. Wildlife also may change their habitat needs depending on the season.

Forest habitats are areas covered mostly by trees. Wildlife that live in forests need trees for food or cover. Forest dwellers range from the crashing moose to the tapping woodpecker.

Prairie habitats are areas that are mainly grass. Animals that love grasses for food or cover live in prairies. Grasshoppers hop and bison nap in the short and tall grasses of the prairies.

Water habitats are extremely important to many types of wildlife. Ducks, geese, and other birds need wetlands--areas filled with water during at least part of the year--to survive. Aquatic (say ah-kwa-tick) habitats are lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams. These habitats provide everything a rainbow trout or busy beaver could want.

Most cities have grass, trees, cement, and buildings. There are many trees and bushes in cities, but they usually aren't very close together. Buildings are good cover for many animals, including gray squirrels, pigeons, mice, and raccoons. Even larger white-tailed deer find the things they need to survive in city habitat.

Habitat Hunt

Animals can be found in many different habitats. Some can live in more than one type of habitat. Can you draw lines from each animal to each habitat where it may be found? )

Roaming Through My Home

The area that wildlife travel to find food, water, cover, and a mate is their home range. Shrews have small home ranges that cover less than a city block. Brown bears may travel hundreds of miles to fill their needs, so their home range is large. Gray wolves travel in packs and need more space and larger home ranges than the solitary porcupine.

An animal's home range also may vary with the season. White-tailed deer move from woods and fields to small winter home ranges in cedar swamps or state parks. Some predators change their home ranges with the seasons to follow their prey.

Within their home ranges, wildlife have special areas called territories. They defend their territories against animals of the same species, or kind. Dogs mark their territories with scents from their bodies. A male prairie chicken will fluff up his neck feathers and strut around when another male approaches. Your house, apartment, or backyard is a human territory.

A Niche in Time

If you look in your backyard, you'll notice many different animals live in the same habitat, but they don't all have the same needs. How can these animals live together? If they all ate the same food and lived in the same place, there would not be enough room for everyone. They can live together because each animal fills different "jobs" or niches (say nitches, sounds like witches).

Watch the animals in your backyard. The bats eat mosquitoes, the robins eat worms, and the cats pounce upon sparrows. Some are active at night and others move during the day. Bats and birds fly, while cats creep. The niche that each animal fills depends on body size and shape, activity, and behavior.

All Together Now!

The birds, insects, snakes, turtles, plants, and other creatures living together in a habitat form a community. Each living thing fills a special niche in the community. Snowshoe hares eat shrubs and use them for cover. Insects eat leaves and crows eat insects. Owls eat mice and, when owls die, crows eat the owls. Bacteria grows on dead plants and animals, returning nutrients to the soil and air. Communities can be very complex. When something happens to one member of the community, many other members may be affected, too.

Habitat Helper

Over thousands of years, animal and plant species (and people!) have adapted to changing soil, water, and weather conditions. They also have adapted to living with each other.

As the human population grows, its effect on habitats grows. The effects may be good or bad. We alter habitats to fit our own needs for food, materials, and space. Mining, filling in wetlands for buildings and farming, and making roads and new towns change wildlife habitat, often causing harm. When a wetland is filled, ducks can't feed or nest. Other animals lose their homes, too.

Habitat management is the science and art of changing habitat. The goal of habitat management is to increase wildlife populations. We must take care of the habitat that is left so we don't lose plants and animals from the earth forever.

Habitat management includes building nest boxes. It includes planting trees and grasses in some places, and cutting trees in other places. Cutting trees to open forests helps white-tailed deer but not some owls, warblers, and woodpeckers. Burning prairie land helps prairie chickens, but not wild turkeys.

(Exercise: Wild Things Word Search. Only available in publication form)

Career Considerations

Ecologists study the links between plants and animals and their environments. Some study habitat restoration (putting the habitat back together). Many habitats have been changed by humans through pollution, construction, mining, or farming. Some ecologists study different ways to restore and improve habitats so there will be homes for more animals.

Additional Activities

Build a home. Learn about the habitat needs of your favorite animal. Build a birdhouse or mammal shelter for this species. Where should you place the shelter to attract the animal? What are the animal's possible predators? Where does the animal nest or live when there aren't artificial boxes available?

More information about building birdhouses and shelters is available in the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources publication Woodworking for Wildlife. This book has plans for building bat and bird houses and other shelters. You can order this book through:

Minnesota's Bookstore
117 University Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55155
(612) 297-3000

Choose a community such as a prairie, wetland, forest, or desert. Draw a food web that shows which animals eat which other animals and plants. Label the producers, consumers, and decomposers. Include at least ten different animals and plants.

Fair Projects/Exhibit Ideas

Make a book that teaches people about six different habitats. You might want to have a theme, such as "Six Minnesota Wildlife Habitats," "Six North American Wildlife Habitats," or "Wildlife Habitats Around the World." Write about where the habitats are found and what types of plants are found there. List the things that make that habitat different from others. Also describe some wildlife in each habitat and why they are there. Explain which habitats are most threatened by human action.

Make a display that teaches people about a habitat near your home. Collect plants that are common in the habitat. Learn their names and find out which animals use them for food or shelter. Include photographs or drawings of the area and of the animals that live there.

Answers to Me & My Habitat: Things in your home: food, water, air, clothes, beds, etc. Things about your home: roof, walls, electricity, etc. Answers to Habitat Hunt:

Prairie habitat: pronghorn antelope, grasshopper, bison, duck, white-tailed deer.

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Go to Chapter 3
Go to Appendix A
Go to Appendix B

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