Wood Ducks often use wood duckboxes. OF course, you have to put them where wood ducks are likely to be encountered. There are piles of papers on wood ducks using boxes. I cannot comment on goose nesting structures, but brush piles are sometimes used by small wildlife like rodents and rabbits. Snags provide shade for fish and basking sites for turtles. Often aquatic mammals use these for resting. Submerged brush piles and christmas trees are primarily used to benefit fish. They provide a substrate for various aquatic invertebrates that end up serving as food for small fish and so on. They also provide shelter for small fish. The cost of these items is miniscule in comparison to many other activities that are of lower utility to wildlife. Check out the Journal of Wildlife Management, Transactions of the Fisheries Society, and virtually any wildlife, ecology, or conservation journal out there. Even your state academy journal will have information on this stuff.
On Thu, July 12, 2007 12:14 pm, Charles Andrew Cole wrote: > As I've received many helpful comments on my initial query about the > utility of wildlife habitat structures, it occurs to me that I wasn't > all that clear to begin with. Let me try and be more precise. > > On wetland mitigation sites, I frequently see piles of brush (often > underwater), wood duck boxes, goose nesting structures, and snags > (dead trees implanted in the ground) all installed in the name of > wildlife habitat improvement. I rarely see any wildlife use these > structures (especially the submerged brush piles :-D ) and by the > time the 5-year permit is up, these are frequently falling down or in > bad repair. So I wonder about the utility of spending the time and > the money to install these in created wetlands. It just doesn't seem > worth it at all. Is there any refereed literature on this subject > relative to wetland mitigation sites? > > Hopefully, that's more clear. > > > Thanks. > > Andy > > > > Charles Andrew Cole, Ph.D. > Associate Director > Center for Watershed Stewardship > Penn State University > 301a Forest Resources Laboratory > University Park, PA 16802 > 814-865-5735 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://www.larch.psu.edu/watershed/home.html > Malcolm L. McCallum Assistant Professor of Biology Editor Herpetological Conservationa and Biology [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
