Star grazers

Star

Grazers

Historically, entire ecosystems were shaped by roaming herds of large herbivores that grazed the land. Today, livestock are used to replicate these impacts. It’s called conservation grazing and we explore how it can restore damaged habitats and increase biodiversity.

KEVIN CASTER Earlier this year, the Trust enlisted the services of 10 new staff members. Their job? To get their teeth stuck into some vital conservation work.

Quite literally, they are responsible for nibbling, browsing and grazing the land to encourage habitat restoration and help nature’s recovery.

The enthusiastic, yet semi-feral, new starters are a herd of Exmoor and New Forest ponies, and they have joined the conservation grazing team.

Their ‘CVs’ include thousands of years of relevant experience in improving and restoring areas of heathland, an internationally rare habitat that is found on many of our nature reserves.

The ponies join the Trust’s existing cohort of conservation grazing livestock, including native breeds of cattle and sheep.

Together, the livestock have an important role to play in conserving wilder spaces across our two counties.

Whether it’s by trampling rushes to open up fenland, selectively grazing to allow the regeneration of heather, or breaking up dense grasses to encourage fl oral diversity in chalkland, deploying livestock as ecosystem engineers can be hugely benefi cial for wildlife.

In grazing freely on our nature reserves, they will selectively target diff erent plants to eat, which, over time, allows a healthy and varied structure to form within the habitat.

This encourages biodiversity by helping to create the ideal conditions for a wide range of insects, birds, reptiles and plants to exist.

Read on to fi nd out how we’re harnessing the potential of conservation grazing as a tool for supporting the recovery of local wildlife.

New Forest ponies graze at Hook Common Nature Reserve with British White cattle.

Conservation grazing is the use of livestock to manage land for wildlife.

It’s a natural and eff ective method that refl ects traditional farming practices and mimics the impact that herds of wild, roaming large herbivores would have had.

At the Trust, we use a mix of diff erent grazing animals, including ponies, cattle and sheep to enhance biodiversity at our nature reserves.

Here we explore the specifi c advantages each type of livestock can provide for nature.

Ponies

In the past, the scraping and burrowing of wild rabbits would have helped maintain areas of open heathland.

However, drastic declines in the UK’s rabbit population due to diseases like myxomatosis have allowed woodland and scrub to encroach on lowland heath.

Native pony breeds are perfectly adapted for conservation grazing.

A major driver for introducing ponies onto our nature reserves is the restoration of lowland heathland – an internationally rare habitat – and the many species it supports.

The UK has 20% of the world’s remaining heathland, while Hampshire is home to a third of Britain’s lowland heathland, which is more than any other county.

The introduction of Exmoor and New Forest ponies to the Trust’s nature reserves is being overseen by Jayne Chapman, our Senior Nature Recovery Manager.

She says: “Having roamed heathland landscapes for millennia, Exmoor and New Forest ponies are perfectly adapted for maintaining this special habitat.

“Firstly, they are selective grazers and will switch their diet according to the season, which encourages fl oral diversity.

“The ponies’ teeth are adapted to allow them to graze coarse vegetation like gorse, bramble and thistles that could otherwise overwhelm the heathland landscape.”

Their small, sharp hooves create bare ground and vital edge habitat in heathland, which can support rare invertebrates, birds and low-growing plants.

Another advantage of these semi-feral ponies is they are extremely hardy thanks to a supremely effi cient double-layered winter coat that allows them to withstand harsh weather. They also avoid close contact with people, so co-exist well alongside visitors.

Having these charismatic equines on our nature reserves also supports the conservation of two rare, native pony breeds, especially Exmoors which are Britain’s oldest native pony breed.

The Trust currently has New Forest ponies grazing at Hook Common Nature Reserve, plus Exmoors at Greywell Moors. We also have ponies at our Blashford Lakes, Roydon Woods and Winnall Moors nature reserves.

Above: Exmoor and New Forest ponies can help restore heathland.

Cattle

Cattle can be very eff ective ecosystem engineers when used as part of conservation grazing programmes. Cattle are like bulldozers. They bash through scrub and trample the ground, which removes tall, coarse vegetation and creates bare ground in which wildfl ower seeds can establish, like cowslip.

Their grazing technique diff ers from ponies too. Rather than using their teeth, cows pull up plants and grasses with their tongues, which leaves the grass and vegetation slightly longer than when grazed by sheep or ponies. This creates a varied mosaic of plant species and micro habitats for invertebrates.

A wonderful illustration of the benefi ts of free grazing cattle can be seen at our Hockley Meadows Nature Reserve near Winchester.

Here, a small herd of native British Whites are creating areas of open water meadow beside a tributary of the river Itchen. In turn, this is providing ideal habitat for the rare southern damselfl y, an endangered species that only exists in several isolated pockets of the UK.

As well as British Whites, the Trust uses other native cattle breeds across its reserves, including Belted Galloways and Shetlands.

Sheep

By grazing on grasses that would otherwise become tall, dense and tussocky, sheep encourage a variety of low growing plants to establish within a landscape. Cattle are used as ecosystem engineers.

This can lead to amazing benefi ts for wildlife, especially butterfl ies in chalkland habitats.

For example, on chalk grassland, sheep promote the growth of horseshoe vetch, which is the sole foodplant for chalkhill blue and Adonis blue caterpillars.

There is, in fact, an extraordinary association between sheep and Adonis blue butterfl ies. This rare and protected butterfl y lays its eggs on horseshoe vetch growing in short, grazed turf. The butterfl y’s larvae are then tended by ants, which are attracted by secretions of honeydew. The ants will protect the larvae from predators and parasites until the adult Adonis blue emerges. Without the sheep’s grazing that provides ideal conditions for horseshoe vetch to grow, this complex web of symbiotic relationships would fall apart.

The Trust currently has approximately 230 free-grazing Shetland and Whitefaced Woodland sheep on selected reserves.

Grazing into the future

Ultimately, successful conservation grazing is about getting the right breeds, in the right numbers, on the right sites – plus, a good dose of expert livestock management.

A one-size-fi ts-all approach doesn’t exist. It’s important to carefully consider the habitat, wildlife, climatic conditions and conservation aims at each nature reserve before making any decision to introduce grazing livestock.

Showing our commitment to successfully implementing our conservation grazing projects, we’ve expanded our grazing team to help manage our livestock.

Over time, we look forward to seeing the benefi cial impacts these animals will bring to local wildlife and the recovery of nature. For now, happy grazing.

The native British White is one of the oldest cattle breeds in Britain.

The Trust currently has approximately 200 free-grazing native sheep on selected reserves.