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Our Urban Forest
is Home to Wildlife
Urban forests provide habitat for wildlife, conserve soil and
support biodiversity. Our hardwood hammocks produce fruit that
birds, both resident and migratory depend upon, and also serve
as the principal habitat for a number of threatened and
endangered species including bald eagles, fox squirrels,
piliated woodpeckers, otters, bobcats, gopher tortoises, and
Schaus swallowtail butterfly.
Upland forests shelter native mammals, birds and reptiles and
riparian treescapes along waterways and riverbanks serve as
vital connectors for movement of wildlife between habitats. Even
the green spaces among our parks, cemeteries, botanical gardens
and beaches host a generous cross-section of land and avian
species. Increasingly, these animals are threatened by habitat
loss or fragmentation (isolated, unconnected habitat areas),
which either removes their sustenance or abandons them to
languish in remote treed pockets. When wildlife species are
corralled and their natural range is reduced, they also suffer
reduced breeding opportunities and limited gene pool diversity.
Forests and plant biodiversity is not simply a preference,
but a necessity. Scientists estimate that as much as 2/3 of all
terrestrial wildlife is found in forest ecosystems. This is a
profound habitat, one that requires diversity in order to
maintain necessary resilience to disturbance, disease and
stagnation.
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Forestry Links