Leigh Frederickson, a natural resources professor at
the University of Missouri, has been testing whether cattle can
hold down the spread of noxious weeds, particularly white
top.
Last summer, the 14,186-acre Monte Vista
National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado worked with five neighboring
ranchers, who rented pasture with mixed results. “Depending on the
moisture and the timing, the cows may hammer it over here and
ignore it over there,” said refuge manager Michael
Blenden.
The experiment is one result of a 1992
lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by a coalition
of conservation organizations. The groups said the agency allowed
land uses that were incompatible with the purposes of refuges. “It
was a myriad of things, like jet-skiing, water skiing, even
military bombing ranges,” said Blenden, “and grazing was one of
them.”
In the settlement, the federal agency
agreed to study the management tools available and whether they
achieve the goals of the refuge.
Frederickson
says he concludes so far that “grazing won’t solve all (weed)
problems, but it could well be that grazing is an important
tool.”
Copyright 2000 HCN and Marcia Darnell
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Bovine weedeaters.
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