- Author: Jules Bernstein, UC Riverside
Disappearing native is like an environmental Swiss Army knife
Though it is disappearing, California's official state grass has the ability to live for 100 years or more. New research demonstrates that sheep and cattle can help it achieve that longevity.
Purple needlegrass once dominated the state's grasslands, serving as food for Native Americans and for more than 330 terrestrial creatures. Today, California has lost most of its grasslands, and the needlegrass occupies only one tenth of what remains.
It is drought resistant, promotes the health of native wildflowers by attracting beneficial...
/h3>- Author: Mike Hsu
Giving 1,200-pound cows access to one of California's most fragile and biologically rich ecosystems seems a strange way to protect its threatened and endangered species.
But a recently published study suggests that reintroducing low to moderate levels of cattle grazing around vernal pools – under certain conditions – leads to a greater number and greater variety of native plants.
“We found that after 40 years of rest from grazing, reintroducing conservation grazing had – across the board – positive impacts on vernal pool plant diversity,” said Julia Michaels, a visiting professor at Reed College who led a
- Author: Sheila J. Barry
Well-managed grazing can control non-native plants and maintain habitat and ecosystems to support a variety of species
Research recently published in the journal Sustainability documents a role for livestock grazing to support the conservation of imperiled plant and animal species in California.
Livestock grazing occurs in every county except San Francisco and is the single greatest land use in California. Grazing livestock, primarily beef cattle, often share lands with threatened and endangered species. California has more federally listed threatened and endangered species...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
How do people really feel about cattle grazing on public lands? According to a study of comments on social media, park users don't feel as strongly as one might surmise from attending a public hearing about cattle grazing in parks.
To get a more complete picture of public perceptions of cattle grazing, Sheila Barry, University of California Cooperative Extension advisor in the San Francisco Bay Area, analyzed photos and comments in the photo-sharing website Flickr.
Her study, published in the February 2014 issue of Environmental Management, showed that Flickr can...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
If you’re trying to save Yosemite toads, keeping large animals with hooves such as cows away from the small squishable amphibians would seem like a good start. University of California scientists conducted research to confirm such suspicions. Their research revealed that fencing off grazing cattle didn’t benefit the Yosemite toad, but increased meadow wetness did.
Amphibians are in decline globally. The Yosemite toad was once prevalent in the high Sierra including Yosemite National Park, where it was first discovered and after which it is named. Since the early 1980s, the amphibian’s population and habitat have plummeted.
In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where livestock graze among toad habitat, UC...