Conservation grazing yielding tangible biodiversity returns

Using native breeds of cattle, sheep, ponies and goats to help restore and maintain sensitive habitats across Ireland through conservation grazing practices is fast becoming a good news story for biodiversity.

Dr Barry O’Donoghue, wildlife inspector with the National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS), says that before intensive specialised farming became the dominant farming approach in Ireland, conservation grazing was a natural part of how the land was managed through the seasons.

“There is nothing new about conservation grazing. Farmers have used livestock grazing for wider values other than food alone in the past. Farmers would have talked about what the land could carry or what nature could sustain. Nature flourished as a byproduct of the extensive farming approach,” explains O’Donoghue.

He suggests conservation grazing could become a widespread practice again by farmers and land owners, who in total manage about two-thirds of the land in Ireland.

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“In the last couple of generations, the old ways were cast aside but there is an innate knowledge among landowners about how to prevent under-grazing or over-grazing that we need to cherish and champion now,” adds O’Donoghue who believes restoration is a more useful concept than rewilding.

William Cormican is the regional manager for the western region of the NPWS which includes Connemara National Park and the Wild Nephin. In partnership with the owners of Enniscoe House, the NPWS is currently managing about 20 hectares (50 acres) of grassland for conservation.

“We started a traditional farming regime in 2021 in agreement with the owners. We are developing a field study centre of traditional hay meadow and permanent pasture using Connemara ponies, sheep and Irish Moiled cattle [one of the oldest surviving indigenous Irish cattle breeds],” Cormican explains. The project has also introduced old Irish goats on to Roe and Castle islands in Lough Conn to browse the non-native sycamore. “Our aim is to stop the scrub encroachment so as to protect the habitat which supports Irish lady’s-tresses [a species of orchid] and greater burnet,” he says.

And while he says the conservation grazing regime for Connemara National Park and Wild Nephin has yet to be “put down on paper”, animals are already in place grazing in a sustainable manner.

“I see conservation grazing with heritage breeds as the way forward for the management of sensitive habitats on landscape on the western seaboard. Moiled cattle thrive on rougher vegetation that is unpalatable to limousines or charolaises,” says Cormican. A PhD student from the University of Santa Barbara in the United States is currently planning a study looking at how Irish Moiled cattle manage habitats and thrive compared to larger continental cattle breeds.

Farmers in the MacGillycuddy Reeks in Co Kerry have also introduced cattle into the mountains in the past three years as part of the MacGillycuddy Reeks European Innovation Partnership to manage sensitive habitats in this special area of conservation.

Ecologist Mary Toomey says that Kerry, Dexter and Droimeann cattle are brought up in the summer months to prevent purple moor grass from shading out herbs and dwarf shrubs. “The results are good so far. We started with four or five cattle on one- to two-hectare plots and farmers were really surprised to see what a good job the cattle were doing to open up the vegetation. They also commented on what a great condition the cattle were in when they came off the mountains,” she says.

North Leitrim farmer James Gilmartin is one of about 20 farmers using cattle for conservation grazing as part of the NPWS Farm Plan Scheme which protects habitats with the correct stocking rates.

Gilmartin has put five Dexter cattle on the Benbo mountain commonage area for six weeks during the summer months to enhance the traditional mountain grasses on the wet heath and blanket bog habitats. “I’m the first farmer in living memory to have cattle back on the mountain. The cattle graze and trample the heather which allows the purple moor grasses to develop and the cattle come off it in a good condition,” he explains.

The cattle graze alongside sheep which are left on the commonage for longer periods of time. “The sheep wouldn’t eat the heather or bracken and their body weight isn’t heavy enough to trample it down like the cattle can.”

Cormican adds: “It’s important that people see the value of these heritage breeds which have evolved in these landscapes and maintained habitats there until recently. The message has to be put out to farmers that these cattle are two-thirds of the size of continental breeds. They are hardier. They can be out-wintered for 12 months of the year. They have a resistance to parasites. They thrive on western soils and don’t require supplementary feeding, housing and silage – and they are the solution to returning habitats to favourable conservation status.”

The NPWS is breeding Irish Moiled cattle to provide stock for farming co-operatives on Achill Island and the Mullet peninsula in the hope that they will begin to repopulate farms on the western seaboard to bring added value to farmers and nature at the same time.

Conservation grazing in practice

All over Ireland, on pockets of lowland grasslands, uplands and coastal areas, animals are being used to protect, restore or maintain specific habitats through conservation grazing. The Irish Native Rare Breeds Society (inrbs.ie) promotes the role of Kerry, Dexter and Droimeann cattle, Cladoir sheep, old Irish goats, Connemara ponies, Kerry bog ponies and even the Irish draught horse for conservation grazing.

“Over time, we hope to become a greater resource drawing from the experience of how different breeds are used for grazing different habitats. There is still some resistance among farmers to using native breeds but if you take a more holistic approach and look at the animals over the course of their grazing life, there is a future in it,” says Tom Keane from the INRBS.

Projects include the use of Droimeann cattle to maintain wild flower meadows at Fernhill Gardens in Sandyford, Dublin. The small lighter native Irish breed are suitable for the thin soil and steep, sometimes rocky slopes. “Cattle remove plant material more gradually than cutting and give mobile species such as insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and small mammals a better chance to move to other areas within the meadow,” says Anne Murray, biodiversity officer with Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. And when the cattle graze back the winter grasses from October to March, this gives the wild flower species a head start to emerge and flourish in the spring time.

A herd of old Irish goats were introduced to Howth Head by Fingal County Council in September 2021 as the latest effort to prevent the spread of wildfires. Until the 1940s, Howth Head was traditionally grazed by livestock and goats in particular which nibbled back the gorse and bracken, reducing the risk of fire.

Hans Visser, its biodiversity officer, says that bringing the goats to Howth Head will keep wildfire breaks grazed down. The three-year project uses a virtual fencing system to target different areas for grazing and the goats which eat lots of woody materials will also enhance the biodiversity in these priority heathland habitats of this Dublin Bay UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

The use of Kerry bog ponies by Birdwatch Ireland to graze areas of fen wetlands, salt marshes, dune systems and upland grasslands for ground nesting birds and the use of donkeys to graze areas of Lullymore West Bog to enhance habitats for breeding Marsh Fritillary butterfly are other examples of successful conservation grazing in practice.