ADK Forever Wild: A Wildlife Friendly Home

Previously I had written a post addressing the importance of natural corridors both within the park and also connecting the park to other wilderness areas. While I was researching this topic I learned about different efforts to preserve these corridors and ways of working with the community to ensure that the landscape stays as wildlife friendly as possible. Unfortunately in that post I was not able to thoroughly explore the ways of making developed areas wildlife sensitive. While looking into the subject I came across a great article in Adirondack Like about the effects of a house on the surrounding wildlife and different ways of mitigating the disturbances. Both the structure and our daily activities can affect the surrounding wildlife. These activities “cast a wildlife shadow over 15 to 30 acres.” Even though a property can be modestly built in a natural area, it can still have large impacts on the surrounding wildlife.

The wildlife shadow can be impacted by different activities including noise and light pollution as well as landscaping and gardening. Starting with the house itself, it is important to keep inside vegetation away from the windows and make sure that they do not reflect outside vegetation. Birds are attracted to this reflection and are often injured or die when they hit the glass. It is also important that outdoor lighting is only used when necessary and that it points down. This will minimize light pollution, which can disrupt the behavior of wildlife in the surrounding area. One architectural suggestion that I had not thought about before was the proximity of a house to the main road and the length of the driveway. Having a long driveway has always been indicative of a private setting. While it may seem like your property is more natural by having a long driveway, it is actually a large disturbance for the surrounding wildlife. A long driveway breaks up the surrounding area and disrupts the range of certain species. It is important to build a house closer to the road when possible as to not break up the natural landscape around. Many of these practices are common sense, yet are often overlooked.

Creating a home that is wildlife sensitive means more than just developing in a natural setting. It takes careful planning and consideration of the surrounding fauna and flora. It is important to keep this in mind when developing in the Adirondacks. Since more than 60% of the park is privately owned, we must depend on private landowners to maintain a property that can coexist with the wildlife. More and more properties are being built every year, which increase the chances of habit fragmentation and wildlife displacement. This increase risk of disruption means that it is imperative for Adirondack homeowners to take these practices into strong consideration to ensure that the park can stay as wild as possible.