Understanding Habitat Corridors for Wildlife
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A habitat corridor is a strip of natural or semi natural land connecting otherwise separated patches of habitat, allowing animals to move between them for feeding, breeding or simply expanding their range rather than being confined permanently to a single isolated patch surrounded on all sides by cleared or developed land.
Corridors matter because small, isolated populations are considerably more vulnerable to local extinction than connected ones, since isolation limits genetic diversity over time and removes the option for a species to recolonise an area naturally after a local population there happens to decline or disappear for any reason.
Effective corridors do not need to be wide continuous strips in every case, sometimes a series of smaller stepping stone patches, such as scattered remnant vegetation or well planted rural fence lines, can provide enough connectivity for many species to move gradually between larger core habitat areas scattered across a landscape over time.