Get reliable rangeland science

Public land grazing provide an essential forage base for sustaining ranching in much of the west, but remains a controversial issue particularly in regards to impact on riparian ecosystems. Modern grazing management, including typically moderate livestock stocking rates and specific riparian grazing standards have been implemented to balance riparian conservation and livestock production objectives. Grazing monitoring programs are designed to help managers 1) assess the effectiveness of riparian conservation grazing strategies; 2) adapt grazing management to site specific conditions; and 3) demonstrate successful environmental outcomes to a concerned public. However, there have been short-comings of some monitoring programs including inconsistent effort depending on agency staffing at local levels, inconsistent monitoring methodologies, and a lack of communication between range staff, permittees, and other resource managers. The cumulative effect, in some cases, has been a shortage of data to guide adaptive management or policy analysis. In this study we present preliminary results of a collaborative riparian grazing monitoring program involving the University, stakeholders, and the US Forest Service. Study sites have been established on six National Forests and 34 different grazing allotments in California. Fifty-six sites were established in 2015 and 24 additional sites were added in 2016 for a total of 80 sites currently enrolled.� Annual grazing use monitoring sites were selected to meet 2 main criteria: 1) presence of long-term (over 10 years) meadow vegetation trend data; 2) sites are representative of grazed meadows at the Forest and allotment scale. �We will report on interrelationships between various grazing utilization metrics and common grazing standards including herbaceous utilization, browsing of woody vegetation, streambank stubble height, streambank disturbance (trampling), and livestock fecal load density. We also report labor and other costs required for such a monitoring program. Implications for an efficient and credible collaborative grazing monitoring program will be discussed.