You could say that the place where you live is your habitat. There, you have the food, shelter, water, and space you need to be born, grow up healthy, earn a living, choose a mate, raise a family, and ultimately die. Your individual habitat is also part of a much larger human community, and all members of that community are dependent upon each other to live. Farmers and ranchers supply us with grains, fruits, vegetables, and meat. Groceries and pharmacies sell products we depend on. Public utilities supply us with water and electricity. Doctors heal us. Engineers build our homes. The list goes on. If we were to lose just one of these elements from our community it would cause a huge disruption!
Just like us, the place where any wild creature lives is its habitat. There, it finds food, water, shelter, and space to grow, struggle for survival, mate, bear its young, and finally die. Its habitat is also part of a much larger sphere - the natural community. As in the human community, no part of the natural community can stand alone. For example, insects pollinate plants in the process of collecting nectar for food. If plants disappear, so will insects. Without insects, hundreds of species of birds, turtles, snakes, toads, and frogs will vanish. Many mammals – including some large ones, like bears – depend on insects for survival as well!
A lot of the links between parts of the natural community are far more complex and unclear to us. What we know for sure is that everything in the community is interdependent. Everything “connects” somehow, whether we understand it or not, and the interdependence between species can’t be cut off by fences, roads, or property lines. Your own property is really a small community surrounded by a larger one. When you improve your backyard habitat with one or more of the projects we have outlined for you, you contribute to the health of the overall natural community.
