Here is the long-announced thread about grazing with cattle & sheep in conservation management. I would very much like to read opinions & experiences from Dutch, British & Danish colleagues and from elsewhere in order to broaden the basis of evidence. I take a deep breath now:
1/
CATTLE is a native species all over Western Europe. Therefore plants and also animals here had a very long time to co-adapt in many ways, let it be grazing resistance and seed properties for zoochoric transport. Functionally at least hardy breeds are equal to wild auerochs.
2/
Since Neolithic man has become hugely dependent on cattle notably as milk, meat, leather & tallow source, but most importantly for draught. The rise of modern economies including the conquest of the New World would not have been possible without cattle drawing plough, burden &
3/
millstone. During most time of last 8.000 years cattle was a dominating shaping power in our landscapes, i.e. on the open pasture, but also in woodland and on fallow fields. Therefore most processes and functions in the landscape were principally still natural or near-natural.
4/
The Anthropocene brought a dramatic change. Common pastures were separated, most cattle were taken into the stable. Machines took their mechanical role, mineral fertilisers totally turned the shortness of nitrogen and phosphorous into excess.
5/
All interactions of plants and animals with this keystone species are disabled now. Wherever there are cattle left outside their stocking density is detrimentally high, their pasture is mown afterwards thus flattening all newly created heterogeneity and a high proportion of
6/
animals is treated against parasites poisoning the dung as an important food basis for insects and fungi thus eradicating a whole food chain many birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals depend on.
7/
On contrast SHEEP is a native of Western Asian mountains but not European lowlands. Although it can exert many positive ecological powers adaptations of native plants & animals are likely to leave some deficits, which can eventually lead to local extinctions of certain species 8/
Like cattle domesticated sheep has been present in Europe since the Neolithic, its main economic role being somewhat different with focus more on wool, leather and meat. Unlike cattle it was not indispensable because its unique feature wool could be transported and traded.
9/
Still it probably occurred in most settlements. But its role as a landscape factor was less important. The Anthropocene turn left more sheep in the open, though at large the shepherd economy was driven to the margin. However, most of these marginal areas are highly valuable 10/
for our biodiversity. Despite subsidies modern shepherds notoriously earn too little money, so they are forced to increase their herds, use less hardy breeds, treat them medically and keeping them more in paddocks. Returning wolf imposes a serious problem since sheep cannot 11/
defend themselves & multiple kills are frequent, whereas cattle is mainly threatened as calf which however can principally be defended by the herd at least in hardy breeds. Modern sheep keeping is very efficient in preventing succession, enriching the landscape, transporting 12/
plant seeds & keeping a traditional rural life. However, it is often no more capable of sustainably promoting rare species. Which is exactly the reason why they have become rare.
What happens on a modern sheep pasture? 13/
The herd is 5 times larger than 100 years ago, often having 300 to 500 heads. They come for a few days until everything is down & then go somewhere else. I would call this shock grazing. Unfortunately most of the time they don’t eat what they should eat most urgently: tall
14/
& competitively superior grasses like Bromus erectus (upright brome) and Calamagrostis (wood small-reed). They are just trampled down but recover afterwards, benefitting from the dung pulse and suppress other plants through tall growth and dense roots. Instead sheep pick out
15/
anything else, especially all kinds of blooming forbs thus creating a homogenous lawn without any flowers. There are 3 ways to overcome this. (1) Taking the herd out in early spring to eat early and vulnerable meristem tissue. But you don’t have enough animals for doing this
16/
everywhere at the same time. (2) Fenced permanent pasture, (3) More cattle in sensitive nature reserve, but sheep grazing more outside reserves.
Some examples: The last German population of Micantulina micantula, a rare leafhopper feeding monophagously on Thalictrum minus,
17/
was eradicated by large herds of sheep in the Altmühl valley in the late 1990s. I have evidence for c. 20 more species e g Doratura horvathi, Xanthodelphax flaveola, Tettigometra spp., Megadelphax haglundi, all heading towards extinction in seemingly well managed reserves.
18/
I am frequently seeing downgrazed chalk grassland where even the most widespread leafhoppers are restricted to small patches under thorny scrub. I am also seeing many sites barely with any flowers.
Colias myrmidone, Danube clouded yellow (Regensburger Gelbling) is a rare
18/
#butterfly feeding on several species of low-growing broom which are gradually disappearing from our calcareous grassland. In Germany it is extinct & there is evidence that modern sheep grazing is the cause. In Transsylvania it is still fairly widespread on cattle pastures 19/
which are very rich in Cytisus and Chamaecytisus.
Birds such as buntings, shrikes, larks, whinchat all suffer on paddocked pastures (papers by colleagues in works).
The worst thing is: nobody wants to talk about this freely.
This thread focusses on the situation in Germany.
/end
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.