Development vs. Wildlife: Winners or losers?

by Al Van Vooren, Regional Supervisor, IDFG - Southwest Region Not long ago, one opinion piece which declared wildlife would be losers appeared on the same page with another that declared wildlife would benefit from a particular proposed development in the Boise foothills. Both can't have been telling the truth could they? While advocating a position or communicating an opinion is maybe best accomplished with simple, unequivocal statements, few things in the world of wildlife are that simple. While the conflicting statements in the two opinion pieces seem mutually exclusive, they were just different versions of the truth. There is a whole field of study that deals with the response of individual species and overall wildlife communities to development. It's far from simple, but the response is fairly predictable. In case study after case study, as working ranches and other large open landscapes are converted to ranchettes, rural residential housing, or housing developments, there is a dramatic change in the wildlife that inhabit the area. It is easy to imagine a change in the wildlife "community" as land goes from open country to a high-density housing development. The habitat - plants that provide food, nesting and cover - is drastically different. But shifts in wildlife species occur that are nearly as dramatic when large open spaces like the Boise foothills are cut up into smaller ranchettes, or when clusters of houses are developed with surrounding "open space." In these situations a large proportion of the area and its habitat may remain intact. But each species of wildlife has a different "tolerance" to the presence of humans (and houses, and cars, and dogs, and noise). So even when much of an area remains unchanged, or even when efforts are made to "improve" the habitat, a whole suite of wildlife species that used the undeveloped area may just not occur there after it is developed, or at best occur only when their ultimate survival forces them to. On the other hand, some human-tolerant species might be unaffected. A few human-tolerant species could actually benefit from improving habitat in remaining open spaces, and a whole complex of species will benefit from the conversion of open-sagebrush habitat to landscaped backyards. Examples of wildlife that win when open-sagebrush foothills are converted to housing (and associated landscaping, dog dishes, and bird feeders) are raccoons, skunks, fox, starlings, quail, magpies, and rabbits. Examples of wildlife that lose are prairie falcons, golden eagles, bobcats, antelope, deer, and elk. Growth and development is going to occur in Southwest Idaho. That is accepted. But existing habitat and wildlife values are tremendously different in different areas. The issue of development vs. wildlife can be summed up with the real estate adage: the three most important things are location, location and location. Development in the foothills will create some wildlife winners, and some wildlife losers. The real question is, does the general public win or lose? That's for you to decide. That's for you to let decision makers know.