Mid Mo Smallies

[Basfis]

8 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

Cattle farmers (I'm surrounded by them both in Montana and Missouri) absolutely have to care for their land and animals to make a living.  But here's the problem.  You can keep your own land sustainable for raising livestock, and still be contributing greatly to waters that may not even be on your own land.  What is good for cattle is actually seldom if ever good for fish and wildlife.  At best it's somewhat benign.  My neighbors in Missouri raise beef cattle.  Their own land is virtually a wildlife desert...no, not even a desert, a moonscape.  For short periods of time in the spring the fescue is green and fairly lush, otherwise it's little higher than the fairway of a golf course, either because the cattle have been in it (rotationally), or because they cut the hay, and it holds just as much wildlife as the fairways.  They keep their fencerows clean to get a few more feet of good pasture.  The cows also run in their patches of woodland, which are about as open as the average city park.  They spread manure on their fields to keep the fescue growing, along with some other fertilizers, and I feel fortunate that only a tiny bit of their pasture is within the watershed of my pond, because their own ponds are green with overfertilization.  So their land continues to grow good beef cattle, and will for the foreseeable future.  But it grows little else.  And that's a couple hundred acres of land with absolutely no value to wildlife.  Who knows how much overfertilization they are contributing to the nearest creek, which runs on their neighbor's property, but it's definitely overfertilized as well.  But it's not on their land.  They are good people, but cattle (and a few horses) are their priority, nothing else.

No doubt productive pasture is barren to wildlife. I’m inclined to believe that’s as much on non-native grasses as it is anything. Fescue is useless to wildlife but sure is hardy. 

Trying to carry more than the land reasonably supports is a problem seen on occasion. Prices go back up, they will carry less.