Site Menu Issues Endangered Species Wetlands Alaska Resources
Endangered Species

GRAZING CLICKUP
Photograph by Joel Sartore
Refuge on the range: grazing

Livestock grazing obviously competes with wildlife for land use, but controlled grazing can sometimes be an effective management tool in refuges; grazed areas can be better habitats for birds and other small animals. In an average year more than 1.4 million refuge acres (566,580 hectares) are available for grazing, including land set aside for managed herds of bison and elk.

One of the largest tracts of grazing land lies in the Big Sky country of Montana, where almost 900,000 acres (364,230 hectares) of the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, stretching for 125 miles (201 kilometers) along the banks of the Missouri River, are set aside. Hands from the Burke Ranch of Glasgow, Montana, drive their cattle into the sage country (above).

Ranchers are permitted to graze a certain number of cattle on the refuge but must comply with regulations, such as the compact not to poison prairie dogs (who compete for forage with livestock). Prairie dogs are prey for the endangered black–footed ferret, which the government has reintroduced into the refuge.


©1996 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.

 
return to Issues

| Refuge on the range | Key deer dilemma | Bombs and bighorns | Water quality |