4. WHICH PART OF THE PRAIRIES IS SUITABLE FOR CATTLE GRAZING:
Answers
This is the first in a series of upcoming posts about grazing in prairies – something that is common and widely accepted in western tallgrass prairie and mixed-grass prairies but much less so in eastern tallgrass prairies. Sorry for the length – there’s a lot to say in an introduction to this topic…
Cattle and prairies are like oil and water to some prairie biologists and enthusiasts – especially in the eastern tallgrass prairie region. There’s no doubt that many prairies have suffered from chronic overgrazing during the last couple of centuries. But to broadly categorize grazing as bad for prairies because some have been overgrazed is like saying that food is bad because some people are obese.
be clear, I’m not arguing that every prairie needs grazing. Some prairies are too small for grazing to make any sense. In other cases, the owner and/or manager of a prairie may be completely satisfied with the plant composition and habitat availability within a prairie – in which case the current management is probably perfectly adequate.
On the other hand, I think there is room for much more discussion about some potential benefits of grazing in prairies. However, in order for that discussion to proceed, everyone involved needs to come into the discussion with an open mind. Despite arguments about the extent to which bison and other large grazers were abundant in eastern tallgrass prairies – and for how long – there is no question that those prairies have experienced some pretty extensive and intensive grazing at times over the last several thousand years. And they’ve survived. That doesn’t mean we can just dump a load of cattle into a prairie and everything will be peachy. But I think it’s important not to summarily dismiss grazing as irrelevant or automatically dangerous to prairies.