Providing habitat on a working landscape is one of the goals for the South of the Divide Conservation Action Program.
The group held their AGM Wednesday in Frontier where they discussed the importance of grazing grasslands and the added benefit that can provide wildlife.
Mark Wartman the Regional Vice President for the Nature Conservancy of Canada agrees noted some people believe their lands are set aside and not grazed.
He says to the contrary, land like the Old Man on his Back site is grazed and in that case has a herd of bison grazing it.
"For example, birds will take their fur and build nests and birds that use that fur are healthier. They also disturb the soils, disturb the grassland and leave nutrient, so cattle have replaced that on many of our grasslands and we also lease that available land on Old Man on His Back Ranch to local ranchers and they graze their cattle on them," he said.
Wartman adds grazing grasslands is how you keep them healthy.
"Using the best management practices in that grazing so that it's not over-grazed and it's not under-grazed and keeping in mind that we have got to make sure that we're also paying attention to any species at-risk, how should it be grazed around those species at-risk. We are trying to use the very best in agricultural science," he said.
Source : Discoverestevan