Every day, more and more wildlife habitat is lost to the spread of development. Give a little back by building your own humane backyard! It doesn't matter whether you have a small apartment balcony, a townhouse with a sliver of ground, a suburban yard, a sprawling corporate property or a community...

Murchison, TEXAS—A group of exotic wild animals who spent their lives at a deplorable roadside zoo in Canada are now receiving proper care and living their happily-ever-after at the 1,400-acre Black Beauty Ranch, a sanctuary that is part of the Humane Society of the United States. The animals...

The distant view from Kelly Brenner’s Seattle living room was enviable, a testament to the engineering marvels of modern human habitat. But much closer to home were sights even more spectacular than the Space Needle rising hundreds of feet in front of the Olympic Mountains. Against the backdrop of...

The mountain lion known as P-47 survived fires, freeways and hostile ranchers. But in March, the 3-year-old big cat—tracked by California biologists since his kitten days—succumbed to a hidden hazard: an insidious form of food poisoning. Six anticoagulant compounds—chemicals used to kill rodents...

Nestled among honking geese, hooting primates, scurrying lizards and lowing cows, the Black Beauty Ranch pollinator garden is “a different kind of place,” says Master Gardener and volunteer Cynthia Holifield. Before Holifield began her work seven years ago, staff despaired of the barren space behind...

As my beloved seedlings languished untouched on the display table, I improved my sales pitch: “Would you like a late-flowering thoroughwort to help migrating butterflies refuel? What about an aster that’s the only pollen source for some bee species?” But unlike the animals who would devour these...

Standing in the street and admiring each other’s gardens one day, Sherrie Pelsma and her neighbor made a discovery: They’d become hosts to a buzzing block party. “We could actually see the air traffic of bees and butterflies crossing the street between our two habitats,” recalls Pelsma. “I said,...

It’s a peculiar rite of modern homeownership: Plant a tulip bulb in autumn, cage or spray it to deter nibblers, admire its fleeting blooms a few months later, let it rot in soil ill-suited to its needs and repeat the whole cycle again the following year.

As a new homeowner susceptible to sales pitches from the garden industrial complex, I spent my early planting years salivating over glossy magazine spreads exploding with color and texture and promises of endless summers. “Flower porn” was how my husband described those lushly photographed...

With the right information and supplies, you may be able to solve some conflicts with wildlife by yourself. But when it’s time to call in a professional, here's how to find a humane, effective and ethical company. Ask for an inspection and written estimate It will be difficult for any company to...

A humane backyard is a safe haven for wildlife—a space where animals can thrive free from pesticides, trapping and other threats.

As my neighbors and I stood 10 feet apart and swapped tips for scavenging kitchen staples this spring, the wilder residents of our community shared no such concerns. Squirrels twirled maple seed clusters like bouquets to reach every tidbit. Bumblebees made a mockery of social distancing in their...

The delegate seemed ready to pick a fight, already having mocked a proposed plastic bag ban and other pro-environment bills on the day’s agenda. As I finished my testimony in support of wildlife-friendly plantings, I steeled myself for a heated debate. But on that gray afternoon in February 2020...

It seemed like a good idea at the time: Buy a house with a two-acre property, let our energetic herding dog have the run of the place and spend blissful summer days digging side by side in the dirt with her. And it was blissful, watching Mattie carve out her napping spots behind the ferns and tall...

WARNING: This page contains graphic content. What are wildlife killing contests? While contests like dogfighting and cockfighting have been condemned in the U.S. as barbaric and cruel, wildlife killing contests still happen regularly in almost all of the 42 U.S. states they are legal in. Killing...

The Humane Society of the United States works with community leaders and animal care and control agencies to create Wild Neighbors communities, where humane and non-lethal solutions are given priority.

Of all the surprising twists and turns my venture into the world of wildlife gardening has taken, the one that stands out most is the day I learned about the dark side of my favorite symbol of hope and summer: the sunflower. It was in the early 2000s and the fledgling gardens at my new home were...