How to Turn Your Own Backyard into a Certified Wildlife Habitat!

With just a few quick steps, I will tell you how to turn your backyard into a Certified Wildlife Habitat!

For years I’ve tried to do whatever possible to attract wildlife to my backyard. Everyone wants to see the pretty and colorful songbirds and butterflies fluttering about their yards. Bees are beneficial as they pollinate the flowers. Adding goldfish and koi to water gardens and ponds holds down the mosquito population. But did I really want all of the deer, raccoons, squirrels, skunks, foxes, hawks, owls, frogs, bats, snakes, mice and other critters to visit or even take up residence in my yard? Of course! Watching Nature is one of the benefits of being on this Earth. And having a true certified wildlife habit just proved to me that my property had arrived!

To have a “certified wildlife habitat” means that you have plenty of trees, bushes, flowers and plants that provide food and shelter for wildlife. Do you have a meadow or a thicket? Does your property border a wooded area? What about a water source like a pond or stream or bird bath? Do you provide birdseed in bird feeders for visiting birds? Do you put up bird houses so that the birds can raise their young?

The National Wildlife Federation will grant you a “Certified Wildlife Habitat” certificate along with a sign or plaque just by answering some questions about your property. Sign in or create an account, complete the survey, select the sign or plaque that you prefer, and you will have your own Certified Wildlife Habitat!

For a few weeks, I’ve eagerly anticipated receiving my “Certified Wildlife Habitat” plaque for my garden. I received my plaque yesterday along with a certificate suitable for framing. A copy of a press release was provided to send to my local news service to document and publicize the occasion to get others interested in having their own certified wildlife habitat. You can even give a certified wildlife habitat certificate as a gift to someone else.

You might want to let your neighbors know that they can certify their properties as well. And that they should not be using pesticides or herbicides as it can affect the wildlife and native plantings in the area.

This is the basic sign that you can order for your certified property:

This is the fancier heavy metal sign that can be ordered as a wall-mounted or lawn plaque:

And finally there is a personalized heavy metal sign to which you can add your property’s physical address.

There is a cost for each of the signs and you have the opportunity to make a donation to the National Wildlife Federation.

The entire process took about 3 weeks from my submission of the online survey to receipt of the documentation and plaque.

Do you think it’s valuable to nature to have a Certified Wildlife Habitat? I sure do! And yes, that was me — dancing around in the front yard yesterday afternoon with my plaque! Now where will I place it for greatest effect? Thoughts?

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