ITHACA, N.Y. — A new citizen science project called Habitat Network can help participants plan and create wildlife habitat in their yard, at their school or on their farm when they provide some information about what they do on their property.

 

Habitat Network is a joint project of The Nature Conservancy and the Cornell Lab. “The project primarily consists of asking people to map their property,” said Rhiannon Crain, Cornell Lab’s Habitat Network project leader.

“Some people have small yards, or maybe urban places, tiny little porches; some people do farms. They create a map that depicts where the buildings are, where the impervious places are, what is lawn, where they mow or don’t mow, where the trees are, shrubbery – all the different habitats.”

Participants can also add different kinds of habitat features to the online map such as bird feeders, birdbaths, brush piles and snags, Crain said. Habitat network then provides materials that offer suggestions to the participant about a mapped area.

“We have a planning tool that analyzes the map they produce,” said Megan Whatton, project coordinator for the Nature Conservancy. “Then we provide suggestions for different goals that those participants can have for their property, like ‘I want to do something to support birds’ or ‘I want to manage my water on my property.’”

There are 11 different goals, and each is connected to actions people can take on their property, based on what they’ve entered on their maps, Whatton said. The project leaders want to understand how people manage their properties, as well as encourage practices that support nature, which is important for wildlife and humans.

“Farming is one of the largest land uses in the United States, so partnering with farmers in the Habitat Network and learning how they manage their land is important, so that we can encourage farm practices that both yield the greatest results and support nature at the same time,” Whatton explained.

Habitat Network is interested in collecting information from a broad, geographically diverse range about the kinds of practices people are using and in understanding more about what practices are good for wildlife.

A great deal of anecdotal information suggests what people need to do to make a home or school wildlife-friendly, Crain said.

This project wants to collect the data to understand at a higher grade level what works and what does not.

More than 440,000 acres of habitat have been mapped by thousands of Habitat Network users so far, providing researchers with key information about how birds, insects, and other species rely on human landscapes.

The Habitat Network website allows participants to see other maps and what other people are doing, and features articles about things like making native plants look attractive, the importance of leaf litter, how to use wildflower mixes and how to place wildlife features to protect the wildlife.

For more details, visit www.habitatnetwork.org