Los Angeles a good neighbor to wildlife
The second largest city in the nation is now certified wildlife habitat. The designation, made official this year by the National Wildlife Federation’s Community Wildlife Habitat program, recognizes Los Angeles as the largest city in the United States to be a wildlife-friendly city.
The certification comes at an important time. Los Angeles is located in the California Floristic Province, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. The region hosts over 4,000 species of plants and animals — from mountain lions to Monarch butterflies — but also faces environmental threats from pollution, habitat loss and climate change.
In recent years, Los Angeles has made a commitment to enhancing biodiversity and supporting wildlife conservation. The Los Angeles Department of Sanitation and Environment, which leads the city’s wildlife habitat work, has undertaken many conservation efforts to meet sustainability goals, such as the creation of an LA Biodiversity Index.
Anyone can apply to have a garden, yard, park or landscape certified as wildlife-friendly with NWF as long as their space uses sustainable practices and provides food, water, cover and places for wildlife to raise their young. In Los Angeles, many individual residents, businesses and schools certified their own sites, and then LASAN realized it could have the entire city certified by achieving more than 1,200 individually certified sites.
For more information about NWF’s Community Wildlife Habitat network, visit www.nwf.org/community.