Subject: Re: wildlife management
Date: Jun 20 16:40:13 1995
From: Jon Anderson - anderjda at dfw.wa.gov


We don't manage wildlife, we manage people. Left alone, most wildlife
will manage quite well, thank you.

On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, Don Baccus wrote:

> There have been discussions pro-and-con on, for instance Sauvie
> Island. Removal of cows has caused intrusion of willows into
> mudflats that are used by shorebirds. Mechanical control is
> expensive or at least time-consuming (can you lend us Stuart?).

It wasn't the removal of COWS, but the removal of vegetation MANAGEMENT
that allowed natural succession to proceed. It was well documented that
the Willamette Valley was a prairie when the 1840s settlers arrived.
Blame it on those pyromanic Kalapuyans or not, the brush and timber were
kept in an 'artificial' early seral stage. The Pioneers stopped the
fires, and the open prairie with open Oregon White Oak (sorry, Tweeters,
but my Oregon upbringing will not allow me to write "Garry Oak".) groves
was soon converted to large areas of "grub oaks" which were thickets of
young white oak.

The effects of removal of farming/grazing on several areas
(Finley, Baskett Slough, Ankeny NWRs in Oregon and Nisqually NWR in Wash) are
quite evident in the open fields being invaded with willow, alder, rose,
hawthorn, and Himalaya blackberry. We liked the areas so much that we
'preserved' them as wildlife refuges, then protected them from the agents
that maintained them in the seral stage that attracted the wildlife we
wanted.

I like fire as a tool, but the nasty Puget Sound Air Quality Authority
won't even let me burn yard trimmings (or Himalaya patches) here in
Olympia. The neighbors used to complain, too... especially on laundry day.

> Focused and closely monitored grazing by cows may be cheaper.
> Of course, the notion would not be to maintain the natural
> progression but to counter that fact that good shorebird
> habitat is increasingly rare, more rare than young willow
> stands in W OR, and that Sauvie Island is a significant
> stopover point for shorebirds.

Don, you're not advocating for a natural system, but for a managed
system :-) A managed system will take management, whether in the form of
mechanical (tractors and mowers, bulldozers, technicians running around
in their little Nomex shirts with drip torches..), chemical (Roundup,
2-4-5-T, etc), or biological (grazing by cattle is just one tool - and
certainly not the worst option).

Whatever the management is, we have to consider the benefits derived and
determine whether they are worth the costs.

> My point isn't so much whether or not such use would make sense,
> (I'm no expert), but that the political problem is so involved that
> even raising the possibility that such use of cows be considered
> is risky.

> And goats will eat Himilayan blackberries, after all...

Oh, Lord, protect us from the goatherds! Don, I think you'll find more
instances of ecological type modification throughout the world that is
caused by goats than is caused by bovines.

> There is no reason for cows to be in sage steppe, though.
> Nor native prairie in the midwest.

Now, wait a minute! The native prairies in the midwest evolved with some
pretty intensive flash-grazing by large herds of ungulates. You run into
the same problems in Indiana and Kansas with invasive shrubs and trees
when the tallgrass prairies aren't grazed or burned or otherwise
"mowed". Since it's pretty hard to establish herds of bison on remnant
patches of prairie, well-managed cattle grazing works pretty well.

Stopping management - natural or artificial - changes the habitat enough
that "forest birds" nest in areas that used to be prairie. This is
often exacerbated by the Arbor Day Foundation types, who advocate
planting trees everywhere (Montlake fill leaps to mind). With the
planting of trees in windbreaks, fencerows, etc all over the prairies,
the eastern forest has moved west. And the eastern forest birds have
followed.

Sagebrush steppe...?? I just came across Hart Mtn Nat Antelope Refuge,
where the cows have been removed for a few years. After 125 years of
grazing, the range looked pretty darned good to me. The areas that
needed the protection, I understand, were the riparian zones along Rock
Creek, etc. Adequate streamside fencing (expensive and time-consuming, but
Oh so effective) seems to be anathema to ranchers, to managers, and to
the city folks who want to see the 'wide open range'.

And as far as cows are concerned, I remember lots of Western Meadowlarks,
Savannah Sparrows, Killdeer, and even some Horned Larks nesting in the
cattle and horse pastures SE of Albany, Oregon. Mallards nesting along
the creek. Red-tails in the cottonwoods and Barn Owls in the barns.
There aren't too many of these birds left, now, since the place was sub-
divided and three (3) malls have gone in....

Our problem isn't cows, it's people.

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, WA
anderjda at dfw.wa.gov