June 2006

New Studies Show Ranch Cattle Operations on Right Track

By the HR Conservancy

Some Ranch owners might feel like the Ranch cattle operation is a “necessary evil” that must be endured. Three recent scientific studies help verify that our HR Cattle Co-Op operations benefit the Ranch environment and, are in fact, a “desirable good:”

1. Recent work by Dr. Carla D’Antonio, a professor from UCSB, finds that cattle grazing benefits native plants overall and most strongly during the “wet” season. She analyzed some 35 studies done by others that measured the impact of grazing in coastal California. During a recent presentation of her work in Santa Barbara, she noted that removal of cattle from land previously grazed usually results in higher numbers of exotic, invasive plants.  Areas removed from grazing usually do not recover their native vegetation, even after as long as 40 to 50 years.

2. Studies done by The Nature Conservancy on several of their preserves in the Central Valley of California show positive benefits from cattle grazing and the necessity of a grazing program to maintain vernal pools and wild flowers. By grazing down the exotic grasses, the cattle keep them from shading-out the native plants and drying up the pools. California’s vernal pools contain more than 70 unique and rare plant and animal species.

3. A paper published by the UC Cooperative Extension shows that cattle seem to prefer to drink from water troughs rather than streams. Providing water troughs resulted in a 90% reduction in the time cattle spent in the stream. The tendency of cattle to loiter in streambeds is potentially one of the worst impacts from grazing since it can result in a loss of riparian vegetation, soil erosion from damaged stream banks, and water pollution. The Co-Op’s continuing development of water troughs on the ridgelines is the most cost-effective way of protecting our creeks from over-use by cattle.

Most of the original large herbivores on the Ranch (Tule Elk, Pronghorn Antelope, etc.) were chased out with the arrival of the Spanish and the Mission system in the 1790s. As cattle were introduced into the landscape, they brought with them the Old World grasses with which they had co-evolved. These grasses are annuals, dying at the end of the spring season and leaving their abundant seeds to sprout new plants with the fall rains. The native grasses they replaced were perennial, surviving the dry season by having permanent deep roots.

By 1866, when William Welles Hollister owned 160,000 acres of land in Santa Barbara County, including what today are known as the Hollister, San Julian, and Bixby ranches, it is likely that the widespread conversion of the native, perennial grasslands into largely annual, exotic grass was well under way. Now, 140 years later, cattle are the only large herbivore occupying the Ranch ecosystem and our grasslands have adapted to this just as they adapted 5,000 years ago to elk and antelope.

Our cattle do important work in our grasslands, just as their native predecessors did.  Among other benefits, they:

1. Break up the soil, thereby making the land more effective at absorbing water and allowing seeds to germinate better through seed-to-soil contact;

2. Trample vegetation, making compost/mulch and reducing surface erosion;

3. Prune new growth, keeping forage plants at peak production;

4. Knock down weeds like our Milk and Italian Thistles; and

5. Reduce wildfire fuels.  Sustaining native flora on our Ranch requires vegetation management. Fire and grazing are the two primary tools available for management of grasslands. Experiments done using fire to control invasive exotic plants, like thistle, show that burns must be frequent (every 4-5 years) and done in late spring, not exactly the best time to burn with our blustery winds. In addition, as pointed out by Dan Dagget in his insightful book, Gardeners of Eden:  Rediscovering our Importance to Nature, cattle lower the fire danger and the need to burn.  As a result, cattle are definitely the way to go!