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Wildlife Protection

Keeping It Simple: Easy Ways to Help Wildlife Along Roads

Creating small-animal habitat from logs and brush

On the Bow Wetland Mitigation Site in Bow, Washington, mice, robins, blackbirds, sparrows, chickadees, and other small mammals and birds are using habitat structures created by the Washington State Department of Transportation. The structures are made of brush and tree limbs cut during clearing activities on the site and stockpiled - small logs, 4 to 6 inches in diameter by 6 to 8 feet long, crisscrossed and topped with smaller branches and brush, also crisscrossed. Since the habitat structures are 6 to 8 feet tall, there's plenty of space for small animals to get in and move about. The log-brush structures solved two problems at once: They replaced lost habitat with new habitat, and they reduced the amount of waste generated during the clearing activities.
 
--Apr 25, 2003

Photo by Mark Maurer, Washington State Department of Transport

Brush pile at Bow Wetland Mitigation Site