Livestock--the elephant in the room when it comes to weeds
By George Wuerthner, 7-08-10
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| Cattle trampling of soils creates favorable habitat for weed spread. | |
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The Great Falls Tribune had a front page story titled “ War on Front’s noxious weeds need funds.” It went on about how weeds were spreading along the Rocky Mountain Front and how much the public was spending to control weeds. You can the original article here: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20100708/NEWS01/7080302/War-on-Front-s-noxious-weeds-needs-funds
The article went on for two pages without once mentioning that cause for weed spread. The entire article was about treating the symptom, primarily by spraying herbicides, instead of addressing the ultimate cause for weed spread—which in Montana is generally associated with logging, ORVs, and more than any other factor, livestock production.
Weeds do not get transported to the Front by alien spaceships. The conditions that are favorable for weed spread include soil disturbance, particularly the disruption of soil biocrusts by livestock hooves. Livestock by eating the more desirable climax grasses and other vegetation weaken these plants so they are less effectiveness at competing with weeds for resources like water and nutrients. Plus livestock eat weeds, and transport the seeds to new locations where they deposited in feces. Because cattle wander far from roads, they are by far and away the primary source for weed spread.
The spread of weeds is a genuine threat to public wildlife, plant communities, and can even in some cases enhance fire spread (as with cheatgrass). Yet if we just treat the symptoms we will never “win the war” on weeds. Worse, even when we treat the symptoms, society as a whole, not the industry responsible for this spread winds up paying the costs with taxpayers shouldering the bulk of all weed control costs.
These other resources harmed by weeds—wildlife, plant community integrity, and so on are far more valuable than any amount of beef produced on these lands. Yet like so many things associated with livestock production, the environmental subsidies we bestow upon the livestock industry are seldom mentioned, much less included in any assessment.
The elephant in the room is that ranching does far more damage to the landscape if all costs were accounted (and weeds are only one of many costs) than any positive aspects associated with ranching. If we include the impacts on watersheds from soil compaction, soil erosion, destruction of biocrusts, the dewatering of streams, forage competition between native wildlife and livestock, the killing of predators/pest to appease livestock producers, social displacement of native herbivores by the presence of livestock, disruption of nutrient cycling—almost all of which are externalized and not included in the price of beef, livestock production in the arid West would hardly be profitable.
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Comments
Interesting you bring up Yellowstone. At the conference held in Mammoth about 5-6 years ago--or perhaps a bit longer--they had the results of a study on weeds in the park. I'm working from memory here, but as I recall 95% of all weed infestations were along the roads, and then a lesser amount along trails. Weeds were spread by vehicles, horses, and no doubt even wildlife.
But the occurrence along corridors indicates that the majority of all weeds in the park were spread by human uses. However, in places with livestock, weed infestations are far more universal in distribution because cattle do not stay on designated trails and corridors.
The main point,however, is that we are never going to control weeds as long as we don't look at the causes for their spread and livestock production is a major factor.
My point is eliminating ranching/cattle will not solve the problem, eliminating weeds will.
Of course, I am talking about private Wilderness. We have myriad ways of getting from here to there nowadays, and with that human and critter ability to travel the globe, weeds are probably coming back with the globe trekkers. You do wonder what comes back from the MidEast with the military and their equipment.
I am preparing to spray shit I would never use except for survival, and the advent on our shores of the Spotted wing vinegar fly, Dros. Suzukii, a layer of eggs in ripening fruit, the maggots from which consume the fruit from the inside out, is the reason. No way can I manage a farm and not attempt to keep the crop free from the fly. I hate it. But I hate APHIS worse for allowing the fly in the US in the first place. Their excuse was that is was a fruit fly, and there are hundreds of kinds of fruit flies, and they breed in decaying fruit. Yeah. Now they use the decayed fruit from raising SWD flies. All that means is that the packers will take none of your fruit. The tolerance is zero, unlike the border protections entrusted to APHIS. So the insecticides have to kill bugs we don't want to kill. Our government's oxymoronic protection, again.
I have news for your side of the aisle, George: The US Govt, the Feds, don't do anything well, and attack most things in a slow, methodical way that allows any impending disaster to reach epidemic proportions, world class disaster, before they get their tents set up and their command and control structure in place, and all the appeals, committee meetings held. If you think that there is some silver bullet, some magical approach to herding cats and humans, to prevent any and all environmental change, you are seriously delusional. You can't get there from here.
This country is able to mostly feed itself, even though a goodly proportion of what we eat is imported. It is that transportation thing, the use of evil fossil fuels, that can move food far and wide, so that the American plate can have fresh veggies and fruit every day. Of course, a lot of that was doused with chemicals that are forbidden to be used in this country, but what the...Hey!!!! What happens in Las Vegas stays in Vegas, or wherever. What happens in the bedroom of your lettuce stays in the bedroom of your lettuce. Just like the absolute misuse and appropriation of water in California. Your ilk is all about tearing out dams in Oregon to "restore" salmon in the Klamath River, and meanwhile, since the 1960s, most of the water in the Trinity River, fully half of the Klamath flows at their conjunction, and the coldest water in the Klamath watershed, is DIVERTED OUT OF THE WATERSHED for irrigation in the southwest end of the San Joaquin Valley. 600 miles that water travels. And all the time it is making electricity to power the pumps to pump it uphill to water the desert so you can have subsidized corn and cotton. There was a greater return of spring chinook to the Willamette River in Oregon this year than there was salmon in their entirety to the Sacramento-San Joaquin rivers, once the greatest producers of chinook in the world. All that water now takes the fingerlings and smolts to dry out in an almond grove, a cotton field. And they use Klamath Watershed water to do that!!!!
George, you are pissing up a rope. The great dangers to the environment are urban sewage disposal (and all the hormones and drug chemistries now in the water from that disposal of "treated" water---detectable estrogen from birth control pills!!), urban commodity use, urban run off issues, urban air pollution (yesterday for me it was an extra hour in traffic waiting for the VP Biden limo ride to the airport and his super jet awaiting, all for a rubber chicken lunch to raise money to re-elect just another urban Democrap to Congress. Is there irony and hypocrisy in that jet ride, armed convoy stopping all traffic? Did they raise more money than it cost the taxpayers to fund the trip?) Biden didn't stay in Portland long enough to get the "happy finish." We didn't either. For the locals, a "happy finish" is getting the hell out of that traffic. Cows on what was once an Indian created and maintained prairie or meadow or bald or fen on the mountain for a few months in spring and summer is not the disaster you would want us to believe. They renew the grasses, and keep the trails beat out. Wildlife uses that country all year long.
I was part of planting a private ranch totally over run by a USFS poorly concocted and applied "burn out" a few years ago. We used domestic grass, mostly an orchard grass called Paiute, and some tetraploid annual ryegrass, and some tall fescue. The first snow fall after the fire it was spin spread on the land. And elk and deer were there in the spring to eat it, cut the ground with hooves, and poop and pee. And that kick started the renewal. So the second year, he let cows in for two weeks in the spring and a month in the fall. Hooves, poop, pee, pruning. The third year (this spring) his place is ablaze with all the native grasses and wildflowers. The hooves that were in there to trim the grass, to poop and pee, also plant grasses from the public range the cows came in off of. Now he has the emerald in the sea of still mostly monochrome public lands: black, grey, silver, and white, and some ground laurel green. And he paid for the seed and its application by salvage logging while the ground still smoked. Mugged the burn victim. The great part of this story is that the contrast with his land and the Feds has brought the Feds to doing a lot more work on adjacent lands than they have across the rest of this 200,000 acre burn.
And as I write this, out the window is the loud cooing of the new bird on the block, the Eurasian collared dove. At least three pair nesting in the neighborhood, and coming to the feeders. In 1976, someone released some in the Bahamas. Now they are at the shores of the Pacific. Introduced exotic bird. And I saw a dozen in an apple orchard near Emigrant, MT., this spring. Maybe they eat introduced exotic weed seeds.
Always interesting comments. I agree with many of the observations you made in your commentary, especially the use of water in the desert to grow water loving crops like rice, cotton, and corn. Tremendous waste of water and land.
I've written extensively about the false choice between the so-called condos and cows debate. Neither are good in the end. But that doesn't mean I have to choose cows because sprawl is bad. That's like suggesting that we should promote alcoholism to keep people from becoming meth addicts. Neither is good--but we as a society are more comfortable with alcohol so we tolerate it even though taken as a whole, alcoholism is a far worse problem than meth, just as the cumulative impacts of ranching affects far more of the West's land area than sprawl. But again we don't need either. And in most parts of the arid West we would be better off without sprawl, and without cows.
They can't just spread weeds if weeds are in the area. Most weeds (not all) can only compete with native climax vegetation if the lands are disturbed and/or degraded. If you put a bunch of weeds in a dense, healthy grasslands, few, if any would survive. They only thrive where ecosystems are degraded and competition is eliminated. That is why roads, for instance, are such good vectors for the spread of weeds because road margins are continuously disturbed preventing the establishment of climate vegetation, but allowing weedy species to colonize.
For instance, in many grasslands, biocrusts creates a dense cover of soil that is unfavorable for weed seeds establishment. Most weedy species have very small seeds without a lot of energy stored in them. If they can't germinate and get their roots down into soil immediately, they usually die. Climate grass species tend to have larger seeds, hence bigger reserves and are better adapted for penetrating the biocrust. Plus most climate vegetation are perennials that live a long time. They only need a successful seed establishment at infrequent intervals, while most weedy species are shorter lived species. If the biocrusts are intact, they have a more difficult time establishing.
Secondarily, you can't eliminate weeds if you are continuously creating favorable habitat for them. And livestock production by eating the more desirable species (which weakens them), trampling the soil breaking up the biocrusts, and by spreading the weed seeds helps rather than hinders weed spread.
By the way how well does that lawn do if it is not mowed and fertilized, which is what cattle do on the range.
I read your comment(s) about the spread of weeds and just had to point out a couple of things. I have a professional applicator's license from the state and work in the field.
First of all, the MAIN culprit in the spread of weeds is (obviously) US!! Weeds mainly spread along travel corridors -- roads, trails, campgrounds, etc. They are mainly spread by cars, atv's, heavy equipment (logging and construction) and (gasp) people. We look at livestock as a secondary cause. Not because we are forced to, but because it is.
Another big offender in the spread of weeds is the dump truck. Any time that you haul gravel, top soil, or just fill dirt to a new location you have just transported all the weeds that were in the old area to the new destination. This can be many miles in one ride.
However the main point that I would like to reference is the following, you said; "Most weedy species have very small seeds without a lot of energy stored in them. If they can't germinate and get their roots down into soil immediately, they usually die."
Sorry George, this is incorrect. By and large the seeds from some of our worst weeds not only do not die if they don't get to the right soil immediately, the may live for up to eight or nine years!!
Knap weed (all kinds) and Rush Skeleton weed are very notable in this regard.
I would not disagree with part of what you say. Logging roads, ORVs, etc. etc. etc. all spread weeds. And they are along corridors--and I have made the argument in previous essays that weed spread is one of the major uncounted costs associated with these activities in their respective regions.
If there is a saving grace to these causes of weed spread, they do not spread weeds far from these corridors. For instance, one research that I recall from a weed symposium I attended dealt with Yellowstone Park. If I recall correctly they found 95% of all weeds along linear corridors like trails, roads, etc. as you suggest. That was good news because it made it easier to combat the weeds.
However, what makes cows worse is that they do not stick to linear corridors and help to spread weeds far and wide. Plus they are responsible for creating many of the conditions that are favorable to weed establishment (which I listed previously).
Yes there are some exceptions to every generalization and not all weeds have light seeds etc.. But the majority of weeds are opportunistic species that have difficulty establishing themselves in vegetative communities that are in good ecological conditions.
My experience with most people involved with weed control is that they very little about plant ecology. And this is not just my own observations. I worked for the head weed specialist with the BLM as well as one of the top weed researchers in the West--and both lamented the mentality exhibited by most range folks, ranchers, county commissioners, weed control people, etc. which was almost always based on killing the weeds, instead of changing the conditions that favor weed spread. In fact, if your job is to kill weeds, why would you really want to get rid of them? I do not know if this applies to you, so please do not take this as a direct generalization for you. But certainly that is a wide spread attitude around the West. It is lot tougher to remove or eliminate the sources of weed infestation than to to treat the symptoms and give the impression that you're doing something by throwing out a lot of herbicides on the land.