Creature Comforts of Home : Animal Lovers Turn Their Landscapes Into Havens for Wildlife

Tract houses on Bear Valley Road look as anonymous as any other neighborhood carved from the hills in Southern California. But wild animals flock to one Moorpark address in particular, Cathy Ann Smith’s house.

Though her yards are not large, two years ago she replaced the ornamental landscaping with plants native to the area. The result has transformed her yard into a miniature wildlife refuge in a sea of suburban sprawl.

Smith planted native grasses in the back and nurtured a yucca plant. She pulled out her vegetables and honeysuckle and instead cultivated herbs, sage and flowering plants, including old English roses, to attract insects and birds. Water bowls and a birdbath were installed.

Today, mockingbirds gather berries from her fire pyracantha plant, quail skitter up a backyard slope and goldfinches bathe in the fountain. A fat alligator lizard has taken up residence, but a roadrunner has its eye on the reptile.

“It’s so nice to look out your back door and see birds and hummingbirds and butterflies,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of building going on around us, so it’s nice to know you can do your part to help wildlife.”

To recapture a small piece of paradise lost, more and more Ventura County residents are gardening with wildlife in mind. Many live in the east county, where large lots often abut open spaces that still harbor frogs, snakes, birds and small mammals.

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Landscaping manuals make it easy, supporters say, by showing which native plants attract critters--like those forced out when bulldozers cleared the way for subdivisions.

Environmental groups, such as the National Wildlife Federation, offer tips to help families put out the welcome mat for wildlife and then certify those landowners who have done it right.

About 23,000 people in North America have received certificates from the federation for their efforts, including 22 in Ventura County. The effort promotes common-sense conservation at schools, homes, businesses, places of worship, hospitals, even rooftop gardens and apartment balconies, said Mary Burnette, spokeswoman for the federation.

Kits and information on the program are available through the federation by calling (703) 790-4100 or visiting its Web site at https://www.nwf.org.

“It’s a way to compensate for the loss of habitat that happens everywhere, with Ventura County being a prime example,” Burnette said. “A lot of wild animals are still out there and they are desperate to find a place that will accommodate them.”

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Other environmental groups, too, encourage making yards more hospitable to wildlife. Native plants, for example, not only attract area wildlife but require less water because they are drought tolerant, said Rick Skillin, chairman of the Los Padres chapter of the Sierra Club.

Some of the techniques involve letting nature, instead of gardeners, manage portions of a yard. For example, deadwood and leaf litter allowed to accumulate atop soil helps build a food chain by attracting bugs, amphibians and reptiles that attract birds and mammals.

Jerry and Carole Hagel turned their 1 1/2-acre horse ranch in Camarillo into a wildlife magnet. They preserved 150-foot-tall eucalyptus trees, where hawks nest and rear their young every year.

The couple planted shrubs under trees, a critical element to give animals undergrowth in which to hide and forage. They planted and cultivated flowering plants that birds and insects prefer. They don’t have cats and asked their neighbor to put a bell on her cat’s collar so wildlife would be warned. A lone peregrine falcon occasionally patrols the skies over their ranch.

The result has been the rebuilding of a very active, and at times intense, food chain that has created a wild kingdom on their doorstep. Each morning, Carole Hagel is greeted by dozens of birds, seeking handouts of peanuts and sips of water from the basins she installed.

“We would feed sparrows and doves in the backyard, but we were just creating a buffet for the hawks,” she said.

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“One day, I turned my pet doves loose, but they wouldn’t fly away. While I was standing there, a hawk swooped down behind one that was standing on the fence and grabbed it right in front of me. It brushed over the top of my head as it carried it away. It was pretty wild.”