OK, I'll bite. I'm sure Steve Herman will have a few things to add
(won't you Steve?).

Jon, I think you're off when you compare grazing at Nisqually (and for
that matter, any west-of-the-Cascades NWR) to grazing on Malheur. The
productivity of westside ecosystems is amazing. Things seem to grow while
you watch. Cows could be a useful tool in maintaing an area at a certain
stage of succession, but the neat thing is, if you want to let the area
grow back to native vegetation (which is of course in most cases *not*
anything cows would want anyway), just take the cows off. Grazing in
shrub-steppe regions is an entirely different story. The grass
communities in these areas are not nearly as resilient to alteration.
Grazing sets back the bunchgrass communities for years, especially if
cheatgrass or annual mustards are able to colonize. The perennial
bunchgrasses characteristic of these areas just cannot compete with the
annuals which thrive in the presence of grazing. And yes, I know that in
years past fire played the disturbance role that some people think cows
play now. But no, it's very different. Fires would kill the sagebrush,
cows encourage it (assuming they're not at so high a density that they
trample it). After a fire, the area would be shrub-free for a long time,
allowing the perennial bunchgrasses to get a foothold (take a look at the
FEALE (ALE) site as an example of how this *used* to occur). After
grazing, an area has more cheatgrass and other annuals. It changes the
community from one with the potential of interspersed sagebrush and
bunchgrasses to one of dense sagebrush and cheatgrass. Shrubs in such
areas are generally thin, and soil compaction from cattle feet also
decreases shrub vigor. I could go on and on about how these effects are
detrimental to shrub-steppe passerines, but you can read about it yourself
in the literature, check out the series of stuff by John Wiens, J.A.
Rotenberry, and B. Van Horne. They have a number of papers in various
journals about the subject. Another thought is the amount of habitat
left. When we talk about grazing in shrub-steppe and prairie habitats, we
are talking about continued alteration of a rapidly vanishing habitat (in
many cases *vanished*). When we talk about grazing at Nisqually, it's
just using an old farmland. I think there's a huge difference. I'm all
for getting cows off Malheur, and all other refuges and national
'forests' which have as a component prairie, shrub-steppe, desert, or
open forest savannah habitats. Move along little dogies, get on out!

BTW, there once was cowboy who never went anywhere without his Dachsund.
When a fellow cowpoke finally asked him about it, he replied, 'Well, my
daddy used to always yell out "Get along, little dogie", so I got a long,
little doggie'... (groan)

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Michael R. Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu
http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/mike.html