Think you have to travel far for a wildlife adventure? Think again. Some of the most fascinating animals—skunks, songbirds, opossums, deer—are living right outside your door. I’ll show you how to turn your own backyard into a mini wildlife safari, and why the choices you make at home matter more than you might think. Read on for practical tips, applicable inspiration, and a new appreciation for the wild neighbors who share our world.

Read all of the articles in the series, Rewilding Your Yard for Wildlife and Biodiversity.

Wildlife Near and Far

I’ve had the privilege of visiting Rwanda several times to see the mountain gorillas who live only in the Virunga Mountains of eastern Africa.

I’ve been fortunate enough to see lions, elephants, giraffes, hippos, zebras, and impalas on the open savannas of Botswana.

I’ve also had the honor of seeing red-shanked langur monkeys in Vietnam, baboons in Zimbabwe, American bison in Yellowstone National Park, and black bears in Yosemite—all in their wild homes.

Even though I’ve traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to see these incredible animals in their native habitat, my thoughts often turn to the ones living right outside my door in Oakland, California—the so-called “mundane” creatures often dismissed as pests: squirrels, opossums, raccoons, skunks, deer, foxes, coyotes, crows, and scrub jays.

We travel great distances and spend good money to observe and photograph “exotic” animals roaming free in faraway landscapes, while the wildlife at our own doorsteps is too often ignored—or even eradicated—for the sake of human comfort and convenience.

It’s not that the animals elsewhere don’t face serious threats—elephants in Botswana can be legally hunted, many species in South Africa are illegally poached, and habitat loss gravely threatens the monkeys of Vietnam, as well as thousands of species across the globe.

Even here in the United States, wild animals are under constant threat—especially if the administration makes good on its promises to expand fossil fuel use, construct oil pipelines, weaken the Endangered Species Act, relax laws to favor ranchers over wildlife, and build border barriers that disrupt the lives and migratory patterns of native species.

And still, I have hope.

Eco-tourism dollars do help protect vulnerable species worldwide, and global coalitions are increasingly committed to prioritizing biodiversity. Of course, I consistently reach out to my federal and state representatives to urge them to pass laws that protect animals and oppose those that harm them.

But the thing that gives me the most hope is what I can do for the animals right in my own backyard—the kinds of actions that so often get overlooked when our attention is fixed on national or global politics.

I have hope because I put my energy into what I can change, rather than on what I can’t. I look for solutions right in front of me—locally and hyper-locally, right in my own backyard—where our everyday choices truly matter and where we can actually see the impact we make, especially for the wild animals who live among us.

Helping Our Wild Neighbors

The wild animals we live among are part of our communities; they’re neighbors, residents, and contributors—not outsiders or intruders. Our treatment of them is a harbinger of our larger environmental destiny. If we can’t attend to the animals in our own backyards, gardens, neighborhoods, and parks, the long-term chances for biological diversity elsewhere are bleak.

Every animal whose space we share—from the diurnal deer, squirrels, bees, and birds to the nocturnal foxes, skunks, rats, raccoons, mountain lions, and opossums—faces daily challenges to their survival:

• noisy leaf-blowers and unleashed dogs

• speeding cars and light pollution

• rampant habitat loss

• fences that inhibit their ability to travel freely in search of food, water, or shelter

Biological diversity is declining at alarming rates, and since the underlying cause is easy to identify (human behavior) the underlying solutions are equally apparent.