The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has slated wild burros for eradication at Big Bend Ranch State Park, as part of a general program to remove all “exotics” from all state-owned land it manages in far-West Texas, under the belief that burros and several other species:(1) do not “belong” in our far-West Texas deserts since they are not “natives,” (2) are bad for other wild animals including Desert Bighorn Sheep, and, (3) harm habitats, i.e. plants and water.  This burro eradication effort is supported by the Texas Bighorn Society, and Texas Wildlife Association.  This program is a wildlife, range, and social mistake of great proportions.

“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.” 
― Aldo Leopold, Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold

Big Bend Ranch State Park was once a productive grassland, and could be so again.  It sits within 5,000,000-acres in Texas and Mexico held in an international biosphere reserve.  With its protection from subdivision, wealth of water, vast area and varied terrain, there is probably no place in the Chihuahuan Desert with more potential to restore a natural system. How is this to be accomplished?  By removing entire animal species, or by restoring animal diversity?

PERSONAL OPINION IS NOT SCIENCE

Burro eradicators say that although ancestors of equines once roamed North America , they became extinct in the Pleistocene Period, roughly 10,000-12,000 years ago.  They acknowledge that Europeans reintroduced horses and burros 500 years ago.  However, they continue, modern day horses and burros that were introduced to North America are non-native. 

Circle Ranch Horse Tooth

This native horse molar was found in an archaeological dig at the Circle Ranch Indian Cave in June 2011.  It is over 10,000-years old.  

Whether or not modern horses are also native depends on one's personal definition of ‘native’: this is all over the place.  What, precisely, is native:  Family?  Genus?  Species?  Sub-species?  Breed? An animal that is a close relative of, and exhibits the same behaviour as, another animal eradicated by early humans?  Genetic scientists often cannot agree among themselves on definitions for these terms, let alone answer this question.

To qualify as ‘native’, did this animal also have to be present in North America as of a particular date and what precisely is that date?  Wild burros have been in our deserts for centuries: Precisely how many years or centuries or millennia of presence are required for a ‘green card’?  Again, there is no scientific answer, just pesonal opinion.

During the last 130 years, wildlife restoration efforts across the world have sought to restore populations of wild animals eliminated by human impact. Bison, deer, elk, pronghorn; predators like bears, wolves, ferrets; birds like turkey and raptors: the list goes on and on. Many of the restorations used genetic stock different than the original populations. How long may a population be absent before it is no longer 'native' and may the genetics of the replacement animals vary from the original population, and to what extent if at all?  Give not only the conclusion, but the science that supports it.

The Department protects and regulates "feral, free-ranging" non-native pheasant and Rainbow Trout.  

Meanwhile, the Department means to eradicate elk, an indisputably-native Texas animal making a comeback without any government help, from all state-managed properties in far-West Texas.

And, Texas Parks and Wildlife declares all equines (horses and burros) to be non-native intruders, by any definition. Texas Wildlife Association agrees when the subject is burros. Yet, in the February issue of Texas Wildlife, speaking of contemplated eradication of oryx and several other African antelopes, none which are native under any theory, TWA advises its members that:   “Ranchers would be ill-advised to kill off their herds . . .   TWA members, nor anyone else, would want to see that happen to these magnificent animals after the efforts by landowners to enhance populations of these species in Texas and in the US."   

Really?  In New Mexico, BLM is eradicating all free-ranging oryx.

Our National Park Service is furnishing bison for release into Northern Mexico bio-reserves.

http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/wind-cave-park-superintendent-wins-national-award/article_01db2a5a-c3da-11e0-9965-001cc4c002e0.html 

http://www.ecologia.unam.mx/laboratorios/eycfs/faunos/art/GCe/AA91.pdf

At the same time, Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Management Plan declares bison will be shot if they cross onto Big Bend Ranch State Park (Management Plan posted below).

Where is the science, as opposed to personal opinion or preference, for a single one one of these definitions and/or choices?

There is no objective physiologic, historic or genetic definition being used: These practices and definitions are a mishmash of inconsistencies and contradictions. What is being done depends largely on what some person or group prefers.  Often these preferences, and the practices to which they lead, reflect the internal agendas of competing range and wildlife bureaucracies.

This is the case with burro eradications.

Horses of some kind would still have been on this continent in 1492 except for human impact.  Horses and their ancestors had been here for 50 million years before humans. Horses have been back for 5 centuries.  Burros descend from animals that were natives.

Some experts consider wild burros in some ways to be native.

Other respected experts consider them literally to be native: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=697

But these comments are only intended to get us to think about better range practices.  The plants with which horses evolved are all still here, and these will respond to animal impact as they always did, and our ranges suffer from inadequate animal impact which is deficient in terms of (1) intensity, (2) timing, and, (3) animal diversity!

BIODIVERSITY IS GOOD NOT BAD

Thirty years ago wildlife practitioners were introducing non-natives:  This was considered good for bio-diversity.  Agency personnel still do this with plants and insects.   

Quoting from a peer-reviewed paper on Nilgai published in 1983 by Texas A&M: "(Pioneer Texas conservationist) Caesar Kleberg felt that exotics might occupy, in an ecological role (a niche) intermediate among the native game and livestock and thereby increase the biomass of large herbivores the range could support.”

Somewhere along the line wildlife managers flipped to hostility to non-native animals.  Out of this has grown the war on exotics which now extends to many natives: It has morphed into an attack on bio-diversity.

Skeptics of this mindset, myself included, call this anti-native thinking bio-righteousness.  To us, this fight was lost long ago.  And, even if we could eliminate all non-native organisms (assuming we could first agree on what that means), we would be crazy to do so considering that life as we know it would be impossible without literally thousands of non-native plants, animals and micro-organisms.

We can't turn back the clock, nor should we try.  Since Aristotle and Confucius, we have neen warned against extreme perfectionism. Let’s not “make perfect the enemy of good”: We need range practices that use the tools at hand to address with satisfactory competence the vast damage that our species has done, and continues to do, to our deserts.  Caesar Kleberg got it right.

Let us heed Aldo Leopold's warning:  "To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."  The eliminations of quasi-natives like burros and cows, and true natives like elk and others reduce biodiversity.  This harms the land and its wild animals. 

MAKING FOES OF FRIENDS

Our property and hunting rights, and our stewardship authority should not be taken for granted.  There are so many who would take these away from us.  We are giving deep and needless offense to a large segment of our community, inside Texas and across the nation, and in the process creating new, dedicated enemies when we are at best in a small majority.  Over 100,000 people, world-wide, have signed an on-line petition protesting burro eradications at Big Bend Ranch State Park.  A counter petition, seeking support, attracted 200 votes before its sponsors withdrew it.  This 500-to-1 opposition has profound implications for those who would lead wildlife and habitat efforts, to say nothing of funding Texas Parks & Wildlife’s budget going forward.  http://www.change.org/petitions/texas-stop-killing-wild-burros

Wild Jenny and Her Foal

We all have our opinions and are obviously entitled to them.  But an opinion does not become science just because it is held by someone wearing an agency shirt, or because it has been repeated many, many times, or because a group of ‘experts’ agree it must be true.  It becomes fact only when proven.  And no one has the right to impose personal opinion on the community as scientific fact, without science to back it up. Always basing decisions on sound science is respectful.

Let us also respect the opinions of the various stakeholders involved in this.  Attachment II is the Wild Burro Protection League’s position paper.  I cannot speak for all the burro folks.  But their President, Marjorie Farabee, strikes me as reasonable, moderate, pro-ethical hunting, pro-property rights: an excellent person to help us advance the interests of wildlife conservation in far-West Texas. 

Instead, her burro advocates are being driven into an alliance with organizations whose objectives differ greatly from those listed above. These organizations see this issue as a wonderful fundraising opportunity.  This will pay for legislative and other attacks against many values we hold dear.

Typical Public Reaction to Burro Eradications

The communities around the parks oppose the eradication of these animals which they consider a part of their culture and history. After hundreds of years, burros are beloved culturally and even cherished by some as a religious symbol.  Some Park employees are among the most vocal in their defense of these animals. Burros are living artifacts, historically as worthy of preservation as Ft. Davis or any of the historic structures at Big Bend Ranch State Park, none of which are as old as the wild burro herd introduced by the Conquistadores. We cannot make room for 200 little burros on an empty 330,000-acre public park surrounded by these communities?  Why not? 

Conservation cannot succeed without good relations with the communities of which we are a part: across the US and the world, these actions generate hostility towards legitimate conservation efforts.

RANGE MISTAKES AND CONSEQUENCES

If the conventional approaches recommended by most “experts” were restoring deserts and increasing native wildlife this conversation would not be necessary: Everyone would be for these practices too.  But they are not working.

"The picture on top is a view of a desert grassland in southern New Mexico in 1961.  The picture below is the same view in 2002 (courtesy of Jornada Experimental Range, USDA).  Livestock were excluded from the site in the 1950’s, but according to the authors of the peer-reviewed paper in which these photos were published, "...processes resulting in the replacement of grasses continued.”  What are these mysterious processes, and why has no peer-reviewer asked for scientific specifics about them?  Because, the statement comes from 'authorities'!  Such a claim, from you or me, could not get published.  Texas Parks & Wildlife Department has no more idea than these authors of what is causing the desertification and habitat destruction they intend to reverse by shooting the burros.”       . . . Allan Savory

Bobwhite quail are disappearing across ranges they have lived in for millions of years: not one ‘expert’ can explain why or say how to reverse this. 

In far-West Texas, quail, mule deer, pronghorn and even now bighorn are declining. 

Our ranges continue to desertify. The great herds are gone as are the open ranges that allowed their movement to seasonal feed and water across thousands of square miles. For a time domestic animals replaced these, but in response to range damage from overgrazing, seventy years of range practices sincerely intended to ‘protect’ habitat from too many animals have led to the progressive elimination of cattle, sheep and goats, until our ranges are virtually destocked: literally so in the case of all federal and state parks.  But the plants remain.  These need periodic intense animal impact and will die without it.

Grasslands shift to brush and bare ground, of which there is far more than on the first day we started spending $-billions on expensive and ineffective brush control, using bulldozers, poisons and prescribed burns.  The brush problem comes from over-rest: yet we cannot examine this fact.

We move 200 pronghorn and 20% survive!  We try to understand this but avert our eyes from the most obvious reason: range practices have degraded pronghorn habitat to such a degree that pronghorn can no longer live on it.  Our deeply-held beliefs about the need to ‘protect’ the land from too many animals in general, domestics and non-natives in particular, and the eradications associated with this remain off limits for reconsideration.  The pronghorn transplant failure is no reflection on the hard work of the people who attempted to move pronghorn.  These are good people who have tried hard and failed, because, they attempted to put pronghorn back onto ranges that can no longer support pronghorn.  Until we start looking at the root cause of range decline, we are going to fail with all of our band-aids, including pronghorn releases.

“This is wilderness area under management by U.S. National Park Service (NPS). It shows the state of the land some 70-years after removal of all livestock, and having had hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on range conservation measures in the meantime!  Clearly, NPS, like Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, has no idea what is causing such severe desertification:  as bad as anything in Africa.”    . . . Allan Savory

What is it about these outcomes that should build confidence in these practices?  I say, when you have tried so hard, spent so much, and yet failed so badly, in so many ways, for so long, reconsider everything, starting with your basic assumptions.  Domestics have been proven to help wildlife, and vice-versa.  Animal impact, when attentively managed, is proven to work. But, until we remove the bio-righteous and other dogmatic blinders which forbid its use, we will not be able to do what is best for the land and its wildlife.

DO BURROS HURT BIGHORN? 

Burro eradications were justified as a necessary first step for Big Bend Ranch State Park bighorn re-introductions.  Displayed immediately below is Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s internal report on burro eradications.  It contains at least 20 separate documents quoting dozens of Department staff, many under oath.  Document after document confirms that the elimination of burros and the reintroduction of Desert Bighorn Sheep are indivisible in the minds of Department personnel.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's  Internal Investigation Report on Burro Eradications at Big Bend Ranch State Park, Part 1 (40 pages) and Part 2 (28 pages):

But when the first 200 sheep were released, they located to areas where burros never go. 

This on-the-ground experience did not restrain the eradication advocates.  They demand immediate eradications and now say that Bighorn introductions were never a reason!  In a telephone conversation on November 28, 2011, Big Bend Ranch State Park Manager, Dan Sholly, told me that burro eradications had nothing to do with bighorn reintroduction. 

Texas Wildlife Association’s letter in favor of eradication says in part: “To address on-going misinformation by those critical of the department’s policy, Desert Bighorn Sheep rarely conflict with the exotic, free-ranging feral burros outside of occasional use of available water at spring sites.  Scientists note that habitats are not overlapping to any great extent and that feral burros would rarely have contact or impacts on populations of Desert Bighorn Sheep reintroduced to the park.” 

Compare these statements with the contents of the report included above, including the summary at page 53, #6.  

Lack of candor about these eradications is rationalized by Department staff, quoted in the Internal Investigation Report as “discretion.”  In fact however, statements that are contradicted by the written facts harm confidence in, and the reputations of, those who make them.

Even though they now agree that burros do not hurt sheep, or even share sheep habitats, the eradicators demand burros be killed anyway. Texas Bighorn Society and Texas Wildlife Association go along.

This shows how hard it is to change agency thinking, whatever the facts.  It also shows that Texas range theory and practice is dominated by agencies and academia even though Texas ranges are 97% privately-owned by landowners who consider themselves to be independent of government.

Since everybody now agrees that burros do not hurt sheep, why does the Department insist on killing them?

Reason #1: To Protect Water

Big Bend Ranch State Park has more water than almost any desert range in far-West Texas.  Are we to believe 200 burros on 320,000 virtually-empty acres will destroy 60 miles of riparian area along the Rio Grande River, and hundreds of springs?  Considered in the context of the 5,000,000-acre biosphere reserve of which it is a part, and the hundreds of miles of river it contains, this is even less believable.

Big Bend Ranch State Park Manager, Dan Sholly told me on November 28, 2011 that “burros are the only animal I have ever known that (foul) their own water.”  I have seen many species of wild animals at Circle Ranch doing this. 

At Circle Ranch, our waterholes and tinajas are full of dung from cattle, deer, elk, pronghorn as well as predators like coyotes and foxes, not to mention bird life.  What I see in these pictures (screens #1, 3, & 4 above) is a natural and desirable cycling of plant material which can only happen if large grazers are present.

The picture of a hole made by a burro digging for water (screen #2-above) is intended to show more “damage.”  As discussed at Attachment 1, the old buffalo ranges were covered with wallows which were critical to the health of multiple species.  As discussed in that same peer-reviewed paper, black bear are eco-system engineers whose digging for roots and spreading of seed benefit plants.  Many animals including javelina, prairie dogs and even some quail also dig.  Animal soil disturbance improves water function.

$-Millions are spent annually to mechanically manipulate soil.  Landowners who do this receive conservation awards.  But those who say that animals can do this better and cheaper are dismissed as cranks.

Animal Impact Demonstrated in far-West Texas

Pictured above is a 1,000-head cattle herd which was located in a 640-acre area of Circle Ranch, in about June, 2010.

These animals most definitely trampled, defecated and urinated around and in the seasonal water pictured here.

Did this harm water and the habitat around it? 

We removed the animals in June, 2010 and allowed a long period of rest from cattle.  But elk, deer, pronghorn, bighorn, predators, and waterfowl and birds have used this continuously.  The second picture is of the same spot, in August, 2011, taken in the depth of the most severe drought ever recorded in Texas.  Less than 4" of rain had fallen in the previous 13 months!  Not only has this pond cleaned itself up, but the plants, all the way back up that draw covering thousands of acres, have been stimulated by the trampling and dunging of the animals in the upper picture.  This shows the power of domestic animal impact if it is accompanied by attentive management including adequate recovery periods.  It points out something else: desert plants and animals co-evolved in dry conditions.  Like Brer Rabbit and his briar patch, desert plants and animals like desert conditions. Desert plants will do very well if they get what they need: and they need herding animals, not bulldozers or poisons.

Reason #2: Killing Burros Eliminates Disease  

If we plan to kill burros because they visit Mexico and might bring back disease, what about all the sheep, elk, deer, pronghorn, coyotes, panthers, bear, bison, birds, bats and bugs that do likewise?

Reason #3: Burro “Competition” Harms Wildlife

The Texas Wildlife Association statement that burros do not harm or even share living space with sheep, is correct but incomplete.  In the picture above, the striped horses (non-ruminant zebras) not only do not compete with the antelope (ruminant wildebeest) but they also help those animals: as non-ruminants they can eat coarse grass which the ruminants cannot digest.  Cleaning out the coarse material renders what is left edible by the ruminants, and animal impact stimulates new growth which ruminants can digest.  This is called “facilitation” and it is part of a phenomenon known as the “grazing succession.”  New studies coming out of Africa demonstrate the same relationship with respect to cattle.

Princeton University has published findings that burros help ruminents like cattle and other species.  Read this article summarizing those findings:

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S32/93/41K10/index.xml?section=fea...

Our desert plants and animals co-evolved with horses.  There is a useful role for horses in our desert ecosystems.

For more information on this, see this post: http://circleranchtx.com/coexisting-with-cattle

In the picture above, you are looking at part of a herd that contains more animals than all the mule deer, pronghorn, bighorn and elk in far-West Texas, combined!  These animals are occupying an area that is less than 1% the size of the park that these eradications are intended to “protect.”  Do we think that animals in these numbers are helping or harming the habitat?  Do we think these animals are destroying water, plants and fouling the ground with dung and urine?  Or are they stimulating plants, soil life, improving water function, cycling minerals, and increasing soil fertility?  It is the bio-diversity in the large animal numbers, and the animal impact of these mixed herds, that in fact keep desert grasslands alive.  Does any of us think that an area the size of this picture containing one little burro will be destroyed by it?   

Recognizing the obvious implication of the photo includes acknowledging that animals in far-West Texas are subject to many constraints, and complexities not present in Africa. But they also have certain benefits that African wild game doesn’t.  How we apply these principles is not easy as I will attest from experience.  But let’s understand that animal impact from a bio-diverse animal community including horses is a good thing not a bad thing for habitat and native animals.

And let us understand this as well:  No physiological evidence is out there to show that the burros at Big Bend Ranch State Park are hurting anything.

Reason #4: Policy

Which leaves the Department's last excuse:

"We have a "Policy" to eliminate all 'exotics', and, we define elk and burros as such.  We are sorry but it must be done."  

Of the several bad reasons for all of these eradications, I find this the most disturbing. As if a rule promulgated by an agency is self-justified, let alone infallible!

History is full of examples of the real damage that can be done by such thinking.

Different Range-Management Practices Produce Different Outcomes

At Circle we have practiced planned grazing for 11 years.  More importantly, Circle Ranch has been under some kind of grazing regime for 130 years.  Circle has never been under prolonged, total rest from livestock or wildlife, like Big Bend Ranch State Park, and the Wildlife Management Area’s where habitats are in decline.

Two separate teams of Parks & Wildlife biologists, sent to Circle expecting to find that our habitat was over-utilized like the Wildlife Management Area’s next door, have done browse surveys on Circle Ranch and concluded that there is little browse usage to be found on any part of our ranch.  A grass survey done in September established that we have enough feed on about 1/3 of the ranch, for 600 animal units for 210 days: 120,000 stock days (SD’s) of grazing, if we took only 1/3 and left 2/3 for wildlife.  We have decided not to run cattle this winter (2011-2012) because the La Nina forecast tells us that the drought is going to continue through next spring and summer.  But we could have grazed and we have not harmed our land, plants, or animals.  We kill no predators.  We have 60 elk, an unknown number of aoudad, 350 mule deer, 100 bighorn sheep at any time, and the largest number of pronghorn in the 11 years that we have owned the ranch, maybe 80, 50 rescue llamas and alpacas, and, at times we run as many as 1,100 cattle. 

Next door, the Wildlife Management Area kills all its large predators, all elk, all aoudad, has had no cattle for 60 years.  Now they must cull mule deer and also remove 15% of its bighorn, because its habitat is in decline.  These conventional practices of de-stocking, predator control, and animal removals reduce biodiversity and harm habitat.  Yet right next door, Circle Ranch has none of those problems, even though we have so many more animal numbers and animal species. 

Plants have the same physiological needs on public land as on private land: periodic intense animal impact from a bio-diverse animal community is needed everywhere in order to protect and enhance the wildlife that is there and to allow us to restore desert bighorn, pronghorn and elk to their native ranges in West Texas. 

Here is a video which explains the need for animal impact.  Please take three and one-half minutes to consider one of the most profound environmental insights of the 20^th Century: http://circleranchtx.com/planned-management

Range choices are not so hard once we quit trying to out-smart Mother Nature.  We must manage these species in various ways, including ethical hunting and removals.  But always, let us manage in nature’s image:  We cannot out-smart Mother Nature, but we can easily out-dumb her.

NEEDED: A NATIONAL INQUIRY INTO WESTERN RANGE PRACTICES

Allan Savory (http://www.savoryinstitute.com/about-us/allan-savory/) is a preeminent international authority on desert grasslands and their wildlife.  Allan originated Holistic Resource Management.  Planned grazing and a decision-making process are the foundations of holistic management. 

Allan’s advice, with which I completely agree, is that we have a national, open inquiry into the science behind US range & wildlife management.  Since all sides of this issue claim to want science-based solutions, all should welcome open investigation into this critical issue.  Allan believes that a Congressional Committee, or some other acceptable body, should conduct this; and that academic and wildlife authorities should not be allowed to control the evidence presented.  While this might be done in far-West Texas, ideally we would not limit it to Texas because the desertification of the Western US is appalling, and is destroying along with ranges and wildlife, the Western ranching culture which is so important to our country.

We need to address the major wildlife challenge: desertification.  We cannot do that until we adopt a decision-making process that involves true science, the objectives of the communities involved and the financial, social, and environmental conditions that we hope to achieve: i.e. a view of what we want our world to look like 100 years from now.  

Such an investigation and the development of such a long-range plan with true science as the foundation for our range practice, would be an objective worthy of every wildlife organization and each one of us.

Desertification Explained Simply by Allan Savory

Attachment 1.

THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING NATURAL HISTORY AND SPECIES DEPENDANCE IN CONSERVATION

“Interestingly, the reintroduction of horses . . . , which were present for many thousands of years in the wild until recently, may have had a beneficial effect on bio-diversity.  Likewise, in a broad perspective, the feral Burro . . . may be viewed as a potentially beneficial native, rather than as a nuisance alien . . . ”  (Page 8)

This is a quote from a peer-reviewed article which was published in the internationally renowned quarterly journal “Bio-diversity” which is distributed worldwide.  This journal is sponsored by Tropical Conservancy Institute located in Ottawa, Canada.

This paper concludes that:

·                     In order to understand ecology, we need to look at the immediate past of the various habitats that we seek to understand, and also look back into the prehistoric past.  (Page 13)

·                     In protecting a single species, we protect many other species with substantial benefits to overall bio-diversity.  (Page 13)

·                     Although the conclusions above are not new discoveries, they have long been neglected in practice.  (Page 13).

Other observations:

·                     Extinction or extirpation of a species leads to the decline of other dependent species and to a decline of bio-diversity and all its forms  . . .  (Page 2)

·                     Extinct animals are a very important consideration in the understanding of the form and function of many surviving species.  (Page 6)

·                     Reestablishment of wild horses in the Santa Rosa National Park in Costa Rica may have caused certain trees to become reestablished as a result of horses distributing the seeds of these trees.  This in turn helped bats and mice. (Page 7)

·                     The extinction of the mammoths and the wooly rhinos on the steppes of the Western Yukon and Northern Alaska meant lack of soil disturbances, and nutrient input.  In turn this resulted in the replacement of nutrient-rich grasses in steppe vegetation by nutrient-poor mosses and sedges in a moss-dominated tundra.  (Page 8)

·                     Large animal extinctions in the Southwest radically altered vegetation.  Reintroduction of horses and burros may be good for bio-diversity.  Reintroduction of camels, once native, could reduce the dominance of creosote and thereby increase the overall numbers of different species.  The expansion of creosote to domination in the Southwest following the disappearance of major creosote browsers can be compared to modern invasive aliens introduced without controls which dominate eco-systems at the expense of native bio-diversity.  Domination of Creosote, Sagebrush, Saltbush, Chaparral, or Mesquite could be a result of an unoccupied (animal) niche.  (Page 9)

·                     Large grazers maintained higher animal and plant diversity than fires because they create patchiness, continuity of impact, and were less devastating than fire on insect populations.  (Page 9)

·                     The combined influence of grazing and browsing by large animals could lead to more diverse grasslands, in the complete absence of fire.  (Page 9)

·                     Bison influence vegetation through a number of disturbances, such as grazing, trampling, fertilizing, and use of wallows – all of which in certain ways lead to higher diversity. (Page 9)

·                     Black bears were abundant and widespread in pre-colonial times.  Black bears are efficient as major dispersal agents of fruits.  They consume 200,000 berries in a day and travel long distances while carrying the seeds in their gut.  In addition to seed dispersal, bears dig for edible roots and this benefits plants.  Bears are eco-system engineers, but very recently their influence has been eliminated over much of North America. (Page 10)

·                     Endangered species acts have been criticized for concentrating on species instead of eco-systems, but obviously protecting a single species could lead to the protection of many species and even to protecting an eco-system.  (Page 11)

Decisions about burros must be made with an understanding of the interdependence of the entire eco-system, and, its long-term natural history.  We must change the way that we make decisions about these.  It is time to start thinking holistically and bringing a better decision-making process into play.

More Than Just a Winsome Face

Please read this excellent article, and then, think about the many reasons why we should be creating a holistic plan for Big Bend Ranch State Park; then having created that, pushing bio-diversity upwards as fast as possible. 

                                    Attachment 2

WILD BURRO PROTECTION LEAGUE POSITION PAPER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.” 
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

Please let me introduce myself.  I am a pragmatic businessman and rancher with no agenda other than protecting private property rights, promoting ethical hunting, and the conservation and restoration of wild animals and their habitat.  Conservation and ecological ethics demand each of us should speak up for the wild animals that cannot speak for themselves; and against practices however popular, that harm the land.

Here is the background of this exchange.  For many years Texas Parks & Wildlife Department has operated the Sierra Diablo Wildlife Management area next door to Circle Ranch.  It has employed dramatically different range practices than ourselves.  For sixty years, the WMA has been destocked from domestics, has shot or trapped its large predators, and removed all “exotics” including elk.  For several years, the WMA has been killing mule deer does in response to “over-stressed” habitat based on browse surveys conducted on the WMA.

During the last eleven years we have managed Circle Ranch holistically.  We do not attempt to eradicate predators, eliminate exotics or cull mule deer does.  We have lots of elk, pronghorn, deer and sheep and at times, we have run as many as 1,000 cattle.  Our habitat is in improving condition.

In December 2010 we were contacted by Department biologists and asked to agree to allow a browse survey.  We agreed.  In the course of visiting with the biologists during their visits, we were led to believe that it was the Department’s expectation that, given our “obvious over-stocking” of our ranges, we like the WMA would also be found to have over-utilized habitat. 

In January 2011 we wrote the Department and asked them to set some ground rules for the multi-year study of multiple transects at Circle Ranch. 

We asked them to acknowledge that doing this was their idea.  We had just had an acrimonious exchange with the Department over its refusal to enter into a Cooperative Agreement with us.  They refused because we strenuously object to the Department’s policy to eradicate all elk on all properties managed by itself in far-West Texas, including the WMA next door.  We also have complained about financial mis-management of the sheep program:  specifically, transfer of valuable public permits, and rights to hunt these on the WMA, to a favored-few neighbors in exchange for access, and their agreement to kill all elk. 

In the attached letter posted below, I said that we were prepared to agree to cooperate, irrespective of whether or not the other requests that we were making were fulfilled. 

• First, we want to know what the Department wishes to study and why. 

• One of the Department biologists told me that they had complete records and browse surveys up at the WMA: I asked to see them. 

• I asked the Department to persuade our neighbors with whom it is working to share their habitat studies.  We wish to compare our habitat conditions with theirs, as a means of evaluating whose range practices lead to better outcomes. 

• I asked the Department to allow us to study the WMA, as it proposed studying Circle Ranch.  When we bring in our grazing consultant, Department personnel would come to Circle and participate in our study.  Then, we would go next door to the WMA, look at that habitat, and evaluate how our respective country is responding, as a means of evaluating our different practices.

• I asked that the WMA be opened to West Texas field staff: Some key personnel with whom we are interacting do not visit the WMA.  They are advising Circle and other ranches all around the WMA on wildlife and habitat practices including doe removals:  How can they advise us if they are not aware of what is happening on Department-managed property next door?

An analysis of the Circle Ranch habitat by two teams of Parks & Wildlife biologists confirmed what we already knew:  There is no part of Circle that has more than moderate usage; really, there was no part of any size that had more than light usage.  This is a dramatic contrast to the WMA where the browse surveys are convincing its managers that doe removals are necessary. 

Doe removals of an animal that is in decline across West Texas seems like a very bad idea.  Does on the WMA also spend time on Circle, so, the Department is killing our does.  Why?

Two and a half months later I got an answer which was not responsive to my questions.  So I re-asked those questions. 

As of six months after that second letter, here’s where matters stand: We have received no information on the WMA’s habitat studies, no response to our request to allow our grazing experts to compare our habitat to the WMA’s, no response to our request to share information on the extent and reason for WMA’s doe removals, no response to our request to develop a mule deer plan for the Sierra Diablos collaboratively with all effected landowners including Circle Ranch.  Information like this is supposed to be available to the public.

This has led me to the following conclusions: 

In this period of severe funding crisis in Texas, hard decisions are being forced on us about what functions should be protected, and eliminated, in our state agencies.

My experience has been that Texas Parks & Wildlife does two things very well: (1) It maintains parks and public access opportunities for the citizens of Texas, and (2) through law enforcement, it protects wildlife from unscrupulous hunting.  These efforts should be fully-funded without cuts, because the public should be given every opportunity to use its parks, and, wildlife requires protection from over-hunting.  And, because there is no private-sector alternative to these two core functions.

As hospitality and police functions are incompatible, park operations should be separated into its own department.

That would leave a second department charged with (1) enforcement and (2) with providing these “services” including scientific research, information, and advice.  This second category is where the cuts mandated by the legislature should fall.  That is to say, whatever cuts must be made, should be made elsewhere than in public parks programs, and enforcement.  

Our experience, as reflected in this exchange, shows that these so-called scientific services are of doubtful value and usefulness. The useful data that we have recieved on range and wildlife practices have usually come from non-agency sources.

Not only are the private sector services better, they are also cheaper. The existence of “free” services is a mirage: Viewed with full allocation of all associated costs being supported by the public, these services cost more, not less, than private sector alternatives. "Free" services undercut the private sector service providers. The result is that the quality of private consultants is harmed, and economic viability of private consultants is endangered.  To the extent services are provided to landowners, landowners should be paying for them. But also,  users should be getting what they pay for!

And this leads to the most important recommendation.  It is past time for an open enquiry into the science behind US range and wildlife management: An enquiry by Congressional Committee or some other acceptable body with academic authorities unable to control evidence.   This might be done for far-West Texas, but ideally we would not limit it to Texas because the desertification of the Western US is appalling.  And it is not only resulting in loss of wildlife, but in cultural genocide as Western ranching culture dies along with the productivity of the ranges.

These letters are produced in their entirety.  The upper letter should be read first.

Letter to Texas Parks & Wildlife District Leader

Response from District Leader & Comments (in blue) by Christopher Gill

This post contains a group of letters and documents on the subject of range-practice advice for the Western ranges of Desert Mule Deer.  This advice was given by the Mule Deer Working Group and Texas Parks and Wildlife.  This current range advice, which recommends complete destocking, or low-density set-stocking, is responsible for the decline of our Western ranges.  These are desertifying, i.e. the grasslands and savannahs are shifting to brush and bare ground across the West.

TPWD Mule Deer Habitat Advice

I was surprised to learn at a TPWD mule deer seminar that the way we graze cattle at Circle Ranch harms plants and water function. So I read all the studies on which these conclusions were based and found they did not study what they claimed to study. I wrote this letter to the authors...

Mule Deer Working Group Response to Chris Gill

This is the response I received from Dr. Heffelfinger on behalf of the Authors and Sponsors of Habitat Guidelines for Mule Deer.

Chris Gill's response to the Mule Deer Working Group regarding Habitat Guidelines for Mule Deer advice against planned grazing

Rather than send a long, separate response, I decided to try an  interlined response, dealing with these points one at a time.  I hoped that doing it this way would get the authors to focus point-by-point.

Briske et al. Synthesis Paper

1.   In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, rotational grazing continues to be promoted as the only viable grazing strategy. 

2.    Continuation of costly experiments under conventional protocols will yield little additional information.

3.    Continuous grazing produced better plants in 87% of the studies, compared to rotational grazing.

4.    Animal performance was better under continuous grazing in 92% of the studies compared to rotational.

5.    Several effective strategies exist, but none have the unique properties that makes it more ecologically effective.

6.    Different outcomes are dependent on management.

7.    Advocacy for any form of rotational grazing is based on subjective perception and anecdotal interpretation.

I read Dr. Briske's studies and found that the studies he relied on in reaching these conclusions had not tested planned grazing.  Instead they tested       what are known as short-duration grazing-rotational systems (SDG's).  SDG rotational systems are not, and have never been, recommended by Allan Savory.  This error of testing SDG's instead of planned grazing is commonplace among conventional range scientists, as the exchanges in this section demonstrate.

Chris Gill's Response to Briske et al. Synthesis Paper

I had already read the Briske paper and realized that it tested Short Duration Grazing systems and not planned grazing.  But when the Authors of Habitat Guidelines for Mule Deer offered it as proof of their conclusions against planned grazing, I wrote Dr. Briske this letter and copied the Authors.  Neither Dr. Briske nor the Authors replied to this letter.

Steve Nelle to Mule Deer Working Group June 2009

Steve Nelle is one of the leading NRCS scientists practicing today.  We tried to get the authors of Habitat Guidelines to visit Circle Ranch and meet with Savory, who journeyed from Zimbabwe for this purpose.I even offered to pay airfare.  None attended.  One author is a TPWD employee who, based in part on the faulty range science of the Heffelfinger conclusions, is the architect of the elk removals discussed on this website.

Chris Gill to Authors & Sponsors of Habitat Guidelines for Mule Deer, Concerning 'Corrections' Made in Response to My Letters

In September 2009, I was in Department headquarters in Austin, when I ran into one of the Authors of Habitat Guidelines for Mule Deer.  I asked him to explain the faulty science of the Book, and he responded that the PDF version had been corrected.  I was delighted... until I downloaded and read the 'new' version.  There was not a single material change to the book.  The range advice remains the same.  With respect to planned grazing, no scientific evidence is alleged to support the conclusions and recommendations which are identical.  The bibliography continues to list the studies:  the new version does not say these support the conclusion but the reasonable inference from their inclusion is that they do so.  So now, the representations that planned grazing harms plants and water function is offered without support.

Click here to download:

SWMDHabitatGuidelines.pdf (3.26 MB)

(download)

Click here to download:

SWMDHabitatGuidelines.pdf (3.26 MB)

This document was amended in 2009.  It is dated 2006, but contains, for example, references to the Briske, et al. paper published in 2008.  Its conclusions are identical to the unamended version.

Richard Teague et al. on Benefits of Planned Grazing

This paper by Richard Teague, Fred Provenza et al. challenges the conclusions of Dr. Briske.

 

Of Mule Deer and Paradigms

Doing What Works: Range Magazine

On the grasslands of East Africa cattle are sometimes helped by wildlife, whereas at other times, wildlife compete with cattle: it’s all about timing.

The articles below  report on a simple experiment that tested whether wildlife and cattle actually compete for food. 

On the grasslands of Africa, like everywhere in the world, multiple wildlife species evolved together, in a way that forced them to compete for, and to share, food and other resources.  As our human species became active in agriculture, we wiped out wild animals because we believed that these competed with domestics, like cattle, for food.  

This debate about whether livestock and wildlife compete generates the primary source of human-wildlife conflict: whether the conflict is perceived or real, people think that wildlife harm domestics, and vice-versa, and wildlife populations are inevitably on the losing side. 

In West Texas a few ranchers, believing that elk compete with cows, got a law passed to permit elk eradications. 

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, and Texas Bighorn Society, in a sincere effort to help Desert Bighorn Sheep and acting similarly to the ranchers following this time-honored practice, also are trying to eliminate all exotics, like aoudad, and native elk on all state-managed lands.  On the WMA next to Circle Ranch, mule deer does are being 'culled',  large predators are shot or trapped, and all domestic animals have been removed, in order to “help”  favored species.  

Eradication efforts like these have done huge damage to biodiversity conservation. But mixed grazing systems involving livestock and wildlife have been found in this study to be beneficial for biodiversity and for both groups of animals where management is attentive.

The study was conducted on savannas of East Africa.  These are renowned for species diversity.  It found that cattle do compete with some herbivores like zebras and gazelles during the dry, dormant season when food quality is low.  But during the wet season, wildlife grazing benefits cattle by improving the quality of the forage in two ways.  (1) Certain species will remove low-quality forage which cattle cannot easily utilize. And (2) that removal stimulates plants to grow and produce more forage of the type that cattle prefer.

In general, large plant-eaters (herbivores) weighing more than 15 pounds are (1) grazers which eat grass, (2) browsers which eat foliage on trees and shrubs, or (3) mixed feeders which alternate between both according to season.  So, when we speak of wildlife we have to distinguish between grazers, browsers, and mixed feeders because they don’t all eat the same things.  And even the animals that eat the same thing differ in size, how they eat, and how they act while they eat. 

Feeding behavior of one will permit the presence of something else.  Smaller animals generally require higher-quality food through the year.  Larger-bodied species generally tolerate feeding on a wider range of habitat.  Ruminants, which have multi-compartmented stomachs for digesting food, usually require higher-quality food.  Non-ruminants like horses and zebras have faster digestive systems which enables them to eat fibrous material:  Thus, they can occupy a wider range of habitats than ruminants of the same size.  Although species sometimes compete as a result of this, the diversity often results in a mutual benefit, in which at least one species benefits and none lose: this contributes to ecosystem stability.

The study talks about how large grazers like buffalo and elephants were found to influence what cattle ate and how cattle performed in weight gain.  While cattle-wildlife interactions can be competitive, they can also be mutually beneficial, depending on how many animals of each type there are, where those animals are at a given moment, how densely-packed they are at that moment, and where they are found across their shared rangeland.  These insights offer a refreshing view which shows us that when properly managed, diverse animal populations help each other.

This mutual benefit is what scientists call “facilitation.”  It works through a process called “grazing succession,” which happens in these grasslands when the larger animals, like buffalo and zebra, feed through the grass, eat coarse material, and trample down the tall plants.  This clears the way for other species to feed on the now-exposed plant parts that are of higher quality.  In this example, one species’ feeding actions improved the opportunity of other species to feed. 

So for example an elephant, a buffalo or a zebra opens up the paths, whereupon the little antelopes can go in and find something to eat.  The latest thinking on the grazing succession phenomenon is that it is like a push-pull of interactions: The big animals create plant conditions that then attract the smaller animals which rapidly remove the high quality plants and this causes the larger species to move on.  These larger species, having a wider dietary tolerance, or ability to eat lower-quality food, can continue to move along and find what they need at the front of the grazing succession.

It is not necessarily true that the facilitating species is the larger species.  For example, it was observed that zebras facilitate grazing conditions for cattle during the wet season.  This is because zebras are not ruminants and so they can process fibrous grass stems whereas cattle can’t, and this benefits cattle.

The authors conclude that a mix of animals: greater biodiversity of animals that differ in (1) body size, (2) what each eats as between grazing, browsing or a combination of both, and (3) as to different digestive systems, will provide managers with opportunities to help the community of animals to enhance biodiversity, enhance animal production and enhance habitat.

The authors conclude that in developed countries it is standard practice for rangeland managers to encourage a mixture of native and non-native plants.  The next step they say, is to do this with animals: this will require bold experimentation and thinking outside of the box, to use a combination of native and exotic animals to enhance animal performance and the development of habitat to make our rangelands more productive.

For years, planned graziers like Allan Savory have offered this thumbnail description of planned grazing: it is about getting the right animals, to the right place, at the right time, in the right numbers, with the right behavior, for the right reasons.

Those who confidently kill elk to help cattle, or destock our ranges to help wildlife, or who believe they help Desert Bighorn Sheep by removing elk, exotics and domestics, or who kill wild burros and longhorn at Big Bend Park or on state-managed public lands, should consider what has been found on the savannahs of East Africa: properly managed animal diversity helps plants because plants need animals as much as animals need plants. 

Princeton University has confirmed these findings in tests using burros as more manageable substitutes for zebra and wild horses:

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S32/93/41K10/index.xml?section=fea...

What an irony that this cutting-edge range and wildlife management thinking must come to us from the Third World, and what a shame it is so contrary to what is being practiced in the United States generally, and on our far-West Texas ranges in particular.

Please read these three articles:

Coexisting with Cattle

 

African Wild Ungulates Compete with or Facilitate Cattle Depending on Season

Grazing Zebras Versus Cattle: Not So Black and White

Whitetail Fawns in South Texas High-Fenced Deer-Breeding Pens

The Texas Wildlife Association is, by far, the leading advocate and source of private property solutions to preserve wildlife and habitat, in the State of Texas.  TWA has long opposed privatization of deer.  

“TWA supports public ownership of wildlife resources . . . and opposes efforts that result in conversion of Texas wild deer to private ownership.”

These following comments reflect our own points of view.  These are not necessarily in alignment with TWA’s, or with some of our neighbors. 

This is a very difficult issue, and one in which there are two basic views which are to some extent in conflict with each other:

• Deer are a public resource and nothing should be done to deer that damages the herds or its value to the public.

• Management of deer is a property rights issue.

These two positions are not easily reconciled.  Beyond the theoretical and philosophical position that deer are rightfully the property of the public, there is the undeniable fact that many landowners’ deer management programs are damaging the herd.

The genetic manipulation of deer herds is creating unknown problems which history teaches us are damaging wildlife and habitat.  Most people think of desirable deer as having large antlers.  In pursuit of high-scoring deer, herds are routinely culled of animals with smaller antlers, and now with the high fenced breeding programs, deer are being line bred through successive generations.

Line breeding and culling are but two examples of genetic manipulation of the herd.  These manipulations occur with only one variable in mind: antler size.  Animals being manipulated ultimately are released back into wild stock, including those behind high fences which sooner or later escape.  We have no idea what the genetic manipulations are doing to the viability of the wild herd.

The experience of our own species has taught societies to forbid marriage between parents and children, and between siblings: such unions are well understood to produce defective offspring.  Why should deer be any different than people?

Yearling Elk in New Mexico High-Fenced Elk-Breeding Pens

Survival of pen-raised fawns in these breeder programs is about 14%: this would be alarmingly- low survival among wild herds.  This is just one example of the negative effects of genetic manipulation of deer herds.

High fenced deer are ineligible for inclusion in Boone & Crockett scores.  B & C views high fences as violating ethical hunting under Rules of Fair Chase.  Out-of-state deer hunters increasingly scorn such hunts as “artificial” and in consequence they sell at a discount to wild deer hunts.

There is considerable pressure to start breeder programs among West Texas mule deer.  West Texas mule deer move across hundreds of thousands of acres.  The genetic manipulation of the herd including drastic culling by any particular owner will affect the herd across huge areas.

These manipulations are being contemplated without any understanding of the secondary effects on the health of these animals in the wild, or consultation with neighbors.

I am very sympathetic to the difficulties faced by south Texas landowners whose neighbors like our own in West Texas (including TPWD) will not participate in collective management of the herd across large areas.  I fully understand why landowners feel that the only way that they can create trophy deer on their properties is to build high fences and proceed with feeding, culling and breeding programs. 

As Dale Rollins, Dean of Texas Quail Biologists observes “You are free to choose your practices, but, not your consequences.”  Feeding and genetic manipulation of the herd is damaging both the wildlife and its habitat.  And although landowners engaged in such activities may rationalize that they are only managing their own animals, the fact is that they are affecting the entire herd in unknown ways with unknown consequences; experience in tampering with nature teaches that such actions always turn out to do long-term damage to wildlife and habitat.

Please take a moment and read the article below:

While there is a growing body of comparative research between holistic planned grazing vs. conventional grazing of domestic animals like cattle, goats and sheep, there is a relative-lack of information on how nomadic herds interact with intact wild grasslands.  This is logical: almost no wild grasslands are left to study!

The article below summarizes two decades of observations by Dr. Samuel McNaughton, of the African Serengeti, which is home to three million head of over 25 species of large herbivores.  The Serengeti is one of the last surviving wild grassland ecosystems. 

Some of McNaughton’s findings:

• Bunched animals modify vegetation structure in a way that increases food yield for every member of the herd.
• Periodic severe grazing stimulates the health of the entire plant community.
• If plants are not periodically-grazed in a severe manner, nutrition for the individual herd members is reduced.
• To maintain high plant production, big, dense herds are needed. 
• Grazing in this way increases nutrition.
• Grass density i.e. close plant spacing, is more important than grass height.
• Severe grazing yields more grazing efficiency than skim grazing.

These observations are separate from the needs of the plants, and the amount of plant recovery necessary between grazing: an intensively-studied area of planned grazing.

Other interesting observations have to do with nutrient cycling:

•  Nitrogen content in soil supporting big, dense herds is double that in soils where big, dense herds are absent.
• Urination on the soil from these packed animals enriches the soil with nitrogen.
• Salt available in plants to grazing animals is higher where there are large packed herds: nature’s own salt supplement!
• In some cases it appears that these dense animal herds are responsible for maintaining productive grassland ecosystems.
• Fresh dung is generally deposited near other fresh dung which contains dung beetles rather than near older dung.  McNaughton can’t say why, but it appears that animals prefer to stay near places where other animals have been, and this increases the effectiveness of mineral cycling by helping the dung beetles that do this.
• A major contributor to the health of the grasslands is the nutrient recycling of dung and urine:  So, these big herds are necessary to the health of the grassland.

In summary, McNaughton finds that ecosystems in which grazers, grasses and soil life have coevolved, exist in a complex web of interrelationship.  Understanding the dynamic mix of these will help land managers more effectively mimic natural processes as they manage their domestics and wild animals.

All of this is part of a growing body of evidence that points to the obvious: 20 million years of natural selection produced a system that worked quite well with no human tinkering. 

The notion that humans can improve on nature is a conceit that would be laughable but for the vast damage such efforts have done! 

Instead of foolishly trying to improve on nature, human tinkering should be directed towards moving systems back towards natural states, to the extent that we can understand what those were, and how to do this. 

Please take a minute and read the article below.

Here is an interesting article, with supporting tables, that demonstrates the results of planned grazing on 43 ranches in the Northern Rocky Mountain states of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

Without exception, the managers of these ranches find that their land is improving under planned grazing.  By all physical measurements, including new seedling success, plant diversity, liter cover on the soil, water infiltration, reduced erosion, increased plant density, the physical condition of the ranges under their management is improving.

Livestock performance is also summarized and the beneficial results to domestic animals is remarkable.

And most important in my mind: Wildlife numbers, diversity, bird life, bird breeding sites, bird nesting sites and predator numbers are all increasing together. 

There is no question that conventional grazing practices have done vast damage to Western ranges over the last century and a half.  But the answer to “bad grazing” is not “no grazing”:  It is “good grazing”!  Plants and animals co-evolved together over 20-million years.  It is common sense that they have grown to need each other.

Properly applied, animal impact from domestic livestock is the best, cheapest, and most sustainable habitat restoration tool available.

Read the results below.

Black Bears were once so numerous in West Texas that is was possible to shoot several per day.  As late as the 1930’s there were 200 black bear in the Davis Mountains alone.  These animals were an integral part of an ecological system which supported far more animal numbers and animal species like elk, deer, pronghorn and bighorn, than today. 

Black bears are generally thought to be a danger to humans and livestock.  No doubt, at times they are.  But that is greatly exaggerated.  In the Big Bend black bears are dependant on plants for food in all seasons in the year.  Their winter diet is almost exclusively plant matter: 98%.  In spring diet shifts slightly to animals: 16%.  But vegetation is still their dominant food: 82%.  In summer and fall black bear eat 86% plant material, and only 11% animal material.  The composition of the plant matter changes seasonally with lots of acorns and persimmon in the fall and lots of cactus and berries in the summer.

And the animal material comes primarily in the form of caterpillars, insects, small mammals and a very small amount of deer and javalina. 

Along with other predators, bear are an important force to balance animal numbers.  We can spend millions of dollars trying to eliminate species like aoudad, an effort which will ultimately fail and in the meantime bankrupt us, or, we can allow predators like bear, panthers, bobcats, wolves and coyotes to control them, for free.  

Please take a moment to read the article below:

Planned grazing is both simple in concept, and one of the profound environmental insights of the 20^th Century.  While the physiological explanation of why it works is pretty simple, applying these principals is a lot harder than understanding them.

Nature had these systems worked out a lot better than any wildlife or range expert. 

Take a minute and look at the video below.

 

Most range and wildlife scientists advise that the best way to graze, if one must graze, is “low-density set-stocking”: In plain English, a few cattle in the same place, all the time.  

For decades now, planned graziers have been showing that “grazing in nature’s image”: i.e., large numbers of animals, constantly moving, with extremely-long recovery periods between grazings, is the best way to improve plant condition, increase soil fertility, and increase water infiltration into soil, as well as improve animal production.  

A new article published in Science News deals with this topic.  The article which is found at the web-link posted below, is part of a growing body of evidence that shows that plants respond very positively to periodic, intense grazing, provided they are left alone following grazing, until they have fully recovered.  This reflects what would be happening on undisturbed grasslands in wild states, as for example the Serengeti in East Africa where large herds of nomadic animals, move constantly and are absent for long periods.

This is an old debate.  Slowly but surely the evidence is accumulating that grazing in a manner that mimics nature is beneficial to plants.  And this is only common sense: after all plants and animals evolved together, over 20 million years!  After that long, it only makes sense that plants would have become as dependant on animal grazing for health, as animals are dependant on plants to live.  In other words: plants need animals as much as animals need plants.  

Please take a moment and read the article:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615161800.htm