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Tricked By Mother Nature
Grass Needs Eating
"Whadda you mean, 'Go to the mountains and eat grass'? If it ain't Club Med and Caesar salads, include me out!"
Sometimes Mother Nature reacts rather
ungratefully when we try to protect her from us. She can be pretty rude and
thankless, thumbing her nose at our good intentions. Ranchers commonly observe that in
certain "non-grazing" areas where their cattle were kept away to
protect the plants, that the plant population was actually reduced. Without cattle to graze on the new
growth of invasive plants, such as ripgut brome, the species, previously
controlled by grazing cattle, became dominant and displaced other plants.
Biodiversity was reduced rather than increased or preserved. A casual observer could conclude that
biodiversity is enhanced by grazing animals. But that analysis would be flawed
as well. What we should divine from this example is that nature's balance
resists our efforts at control and that grazing, in and of itself, is neither
good nor bad. Balanced grazing leads to a balanced grazing environment.
The ancient practice of moving domestic
herd animals to mountain pastures in the spring and to lower elevations in the
fall followed the cycles of growth and renewal and prevented overgrazing. Mother
Nature didn't seem to mind that arrangement.
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