[QUOTE]Originally posted by bettyboopnola:
I have a very special request. I purchased two acres of land north of New Orleans proper. Hurricane Katrina devastated that area, destroying over 80% of the trees.... [snip]
Has anyone considered coming to this area to help some homeowners restore their lands?/QUOTE]

I'm so sorry to hear about the hurricane damage to your property. Right now there are no plans for episodes in New Orleans area (but maybe, if we get to do a third season).

My recommendation is to begin replanting your formerly wooded area with masses of native tree seedlings to jump-start the natural process. You won't get the instant impact of planting larger trees, but seedlings are cheaper and you can plant dozens in the space of an hour or two. Some won't survive (that's ok, in nature many seedlings don't survive) but in a few years' time you'll have a whole new forest coming in.

Good luck!

David Mizejewski
Naturalist, National Wildlife Federation
Host, Backyard Habitat on Animal Planet

Thanks, David - that's exactly what we had in mind.

We are presently building a new home on the property which won't be completed until the end of the year, but I'm trying to develop a plan for when the house is complete.

Hopefully you will have a third season, and maybe we might be lucky enough to see you down here. right now everyone is considering the human aspect of the problem, but there is one with wildlife as well.

When we first came back, there was total silence here - no birds, no squirrels, no nothing!

David, I really enjoy watching Backyard Habitat will your show be coming to the North Georgia Mountains I'm a shut-in most of the week and I would love to look out and see some of the things that you do for some of the people. Maybe you can think of that for a show doing a Backyard Habitat for a Handicaped person.
Evie

quote:

Originally posted by bilerican:
Maybe you can think of that for a show doing a Backyard Habitat for a Handicaped person.

Thanks for watching Evie. I would love do an episode that highlights what you can do to create an accessible habitat that folks with all sorts of abilities can move about and garden in. We haven't yet featured that on the show, so if we do more new episodes we will keep you in mind.

David Mizejewski
Naturalist, National Wildlife Federation
Host, Backyard Habitat on Animal Planet

Mr. Mizejewski,

My husband and I are members of the Greater Phoenix Pond Society and we will be hosting a meeting for our group in October, and we would love it if you could come to our home and speak to group to educate and give them tips on how to create their own backyard habitats and certify our backyard as a Certified Backyard habitat during the meeting. We live in the Phoenix Area (Ahwatukee - most southern area in Phoenix) - very close to Tucson. It would be a great win-win situation for both our Pond Society and Natural Wildlife Federation.

We are sending our application in this week.

Thank you,

Carla and Tom

David,

I really enjoy the show. I have seen all episodes several times. I am looking forward to new shows next season. I really enjoy watching hummingbirds. I have been building my own feeders for the last five years. You can see some pictures of my feeders at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kj4cn/my_photos. I currently manage 18 feeders on my property.

Hi David,

My name is Tammy and I live in Minnesota also. I wish you guys could come up this way soon also. We are kind of having an issue with Mallard Ducks joining my current flock out on our pond and then are coming up to the house when all my ducks come up to eat. It is getting crazy because now they are having babies and all. I need to somehow prepare for winter and I don't know what to do with the Mallards. Last year the Mallards that I raised from babies with my other domestic ducks wouldn't leave for the winter and have stayed here and I had to pen them in a fence with the house (they could've flown away if they wanted to) but now I have wild ones adding on to mine and I have no idea what will happen when I need to pen them for the winter in around a month. I seem to have to many and I know you're not supposed to keep Mallards. If you have an idea please let me know. I will try the National Wildlife Site and maybe they can help me out somehow or maybe get my yard turned into a better managed Wildlife habitat.

I really love your show and I never knew that this was possible to do. My city is getting built up big time and I live in a wetland area that I would like to keep this way.

Keep up the good work!!

Tammy

Hi I'm Jay and we are in Brighton MI. Can the crew help? We want to attract Sandhill cranes and Big brown bats.

Has Backyard Habitat been to or considered coming to the Niagara Frontier here in wstern NY. I am 12 miles from the Falls and even though our winters can be brutal summer here is beautiful with all sorts of wildlife. We even had a Snowy Owl show up down along the Niagara River this week. My yard is still a work in progress ...one seedling at a time.

Penny

Hi David! Britt and I are wondering if you guys have any interest in a show at the jeresy shore.Our girls watch the show, when not in school and my sisters kids were fans before Jim told us you were on t.v.Congrats!Great gig! Hope all is well for you. Thanks-Jenn,Britt,Ashleigh,Addison and Marley Wetzel

Hey my name is Christa, and I live in Burlington, NC.
I wanted to fill out the application to get on the show...but when I click on the link nothing ever comes up.
I live on over 5 acres of land and the owner of the property actually owns over 212 acres in the immediate area. Part of the land is already protected by the national wildlife reserve. But we want to have our little piece of it certified too.
And with there being so much land for us to work with we don't know where to start.
We have everything from deer to hummingbirds, and everything in between.

I'd like to toss my hat in the ring for season three also! We live in Berlin, MD. Just outside of Ocean City MD and have room to grow!! My current landscaping is pitiful (my fault) and my (recently started) home-school children would simply LOVE to watch, join & learn from our own properly set up habitat.

Waiting on pins and needles! I. Roderick Alluringoceans@yahoo.com

It appears this has not had any updates for awhile. If someone, David, comes on in a recent time, I would like to know if there are any plans to coming to the Kansas area. I have a little boy who is going to be 8 this May and has a rare illness, so we only get to be outside in the Spring and Summer months. Otherwise he is sick too much and is very limited to what he can do. I have raised him to be a wildlife conservationist in many ways and we just moved to a new home with a lot of land that is incredible for wildlife. I came to the sight looking for the links on "how to do it" from show episodes but none of the links are valid. He has had a very bad year with illness and may need to go for a marrow transplant in the next year so I am really interested in our family doing a habitat this Spring and Summer. We have ideas for every kind of animal from snakes to deer to horny toads and especially the monarch butterfly, redwing black bird and many others. We have a very large yard that we can turn into a wonderful home for many creatures and we love them all. From bugs to domestics.

If he should come back on here or if someone could get the links working again we would sure appreciate it! Very much! He gets to do so few things compared to most children and this is one thing he can do, except for touching the reptiles, amphibians because he has no white cells and cannot risk salmanella, but we want to at least attrack what we can in our area and make it a wonderful home for us and our wildlife neighbors.

Thanks for the help.

Take care.

Lisa

quote:

Originally posted by kj4cn:
You can see some pictures of my feeders at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kj4cn/my_photos. I currently manage 18 feeders on my property.

This is great. You can now post your photos right here on Animal Planet's Backyard Habitat site. Just click the link in the left navigation bar.

David Mizejewski
Naturalist, National Wildlife Federation
Host, Animal Planet's Backyard Habitat

quote:

Originally posted by jennw72:
Hi David! Britt and I are wondering if you guys have any interest in a show at the jeresy shore.Our girls watch the show, when not in school and my sisters kids were fans before Jim told us you were on t.v.Congrats!Great gig! Hope all is well for you. Thanks-Jenn,Britt,Ashleigh,Addison and Marley Wetzel

Thanks for watching Jenn. I'm glad the kids like the show. (Jenn's husband Britt and I went to high school together.)

David Mizejewski
Naturalist, National Wildlife Federation
Host, Animal Planet's Backyard Habitat

I wanted to let everyone know that we won't be doing any new episodes of Backyard Habitat. We have 45 episodes plus two specials and we've covered most backyard habitat topics, projects and wildlife at least once.

But don't fret - Molly and I are both working on new projects. Molly is now hosting a new daily talk show called iVillage Live airing in select cities on NBC. Here's the link: iVillage Live

I was a guest on the show last December when it premiered, which was great fun.

I continue to work at National Wildlife Federation and have several projects in the works that support NWF's mission to protect wildlife and connect people with nature. I was on The Martha Stewart Show again in January and am working on another segment on owls where we will install an owl nesting box on Martha's property in New York. You can find out about NWF's work at NWF.ORG.

I'm also still doing projects with Animal Planet. I will be on a new series called Springwatch U.S.A. We'll be tracking the progress of spring across the country as it happens, with a focus on how wildlife change their habits as the seasons change. Jeff Corwin and Vanessa Garnick (of Caught in the Moment) will anchor the show from Kiawah Island, SC. Phillippe Cousteau (Ocean's Deadliest) and I will be field correspondents reporting from around the country. I'm REALLY excited about this new series. I've already begun shooting some segments and it's going to be great.

Springwatch premieres on Animal Planet on April 21st at 8pm (eastern and pacific) so be sure to tune in.

Here's a Springwatch article

If you would like to see more episodes of Backyard Habitat, you have to let us know. If enough people contact Animal Planet requesting new episodes, you never know what can happen.

David Mizejewski
Naturalist, National Wildlife Federation
Host, Animal Planet's Backyard Habitat

I don't know about others here but I have thoroughly enjoyed Backyard Habitat and have written to Discovery about new episodes.

Hi David, I love this show! I am an elementary teacher and we are in the process of creating a schoolyard wildlife habitat in the Pacific Northwest. Just today we had a work party to work in the garden and had several families helping. My class is researching local birds right now and will be building birdhouses to attract those species. My question I have for you is: Is there anyway I can purchase DVDs of your shows to play for my class? Thank you again for your show and maybe someday you can do a show in the Pacific Northwest! Thanks, Marca

Hi Mark and Marca - Unfortunately I have no direct say in creating a Backyard Habitat DVD series. That's up to the merchandising folks at Discovery who would have to be convinced that it would make a profit to justify creating and marketing it. But requests like this are evidence that there is a demand and I pass them along.

David Mizejewski
Naturalist, National Wildlife Federation
Host, Animal Planet's Backyard Habitat

Hi David,

I love the show and would like to know if you are going to visit near St. Louis, Missouri? I live just west of STL in O'Fallon, MO. I love to admire the birds that frequent our area and would love to have help creating a more inviting area for them. I currently have a purple martin house that has fledged many offspring for the last 4-5 years (with a couple of sparrow families as well). We also have a "See Rock City" birdhouse that we purchased on a trip through Chattanooga, TN a few years ago. The sparrows have been the main occupants since we put it up. My husband just bought me a bluebird house and I am excited to put it up to see if I can attract the blue beauties to our yard. We get many gorgeous goldfinches to our birch tree to feast on the seed fruit and I just love to listen to their sweet song. I also have a few feeders and some water sources that the birds use. Please let the people at Backyard Habitat/Animal Planet know that we would love to host them in our own backyard! Thank you for helping to increase awareness for our wonderful wildlife!

Joyce S.