Pajarito
New member
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2020
- Messages
- 17
You revived a thread from 9 months ago. I’m in the middle of reloading a bunch of bullets....I’m not going to take the time to find the info for you. Maybe this winter when I’m sitting around watching it sno
I agree that rotational grazing would improve conditions for grasses. However, what I was specifically referring to was Forest ecosystem. The comment I initially responded to claimed that cows increase forest health. I do not agree with that statement, a forest does not need cows in order to be healthy. The other point I'd like to make is that using deer and/or elk populations as a measure for a healthy forest is strange. I would instead look at the overall health and numbers of the native plant and animal species within a given area. So just because cows were removed and elk numbers didn't go up, in no way proves a healthy ecosystem. It just proves that deer, elk and cows like fresh grass. Cows are not native and should be considered an invasive or introduced species.I remember setting in Range Class in Bozeman when Fred King gave a guest lecture on grazing on the Wall Creek game range. (I think it was Wall Creek, After all it was 30 years ago). The cliff notes version of Fred's talk was the FWP at first removed all the cattle grazing to save the range for the elk. Over the years after the number of elk using the game range dramatically went down and most of the wintering elk move to the sounding private land. The reason. The ungrazed grass became old, unpalatable and unproductive. In a nut shell the elk preferred the regrowth after cattle were done grazing. A cattle grazing program was implemented and the wintering elk returned to wall creek.
So what I have a problem with, specifically, is grazing within Wilderness boundaries. I had an elk hunt this year in NM 16B which is a Wilderness area that was completely grazed out (increases erosion), cow crap everywhere (altering natural soil chemistry), cows everywhere (increasing erosion), spreading invasive plant species etc. Normally I'd be pretty upset seeing this in a National Forest, but to see it in a Wilderness Area within the National Forest greatly upsets me.
Side note: I may be new to the forum, but I am in no way new to the conversation. I have been working on water rights, land classification my entire life and currently am a geologist for an engineering company that deals with soil and groundwater contamination. Some of the violators we monitor, dairies.