MARTIN-FONTANA PARKS ASSOCIATION Saving our Park Trees

Patrick Pizzo, one of Martin-Fontana Parks Association’s project managers, proposes timed grazing for GOGP:

A method suggested in the Vegetation Management Plan for Guadalupe Oak Grove Park.  Grazing may be done via goats, sheep, or cattle; and the timing part deals with the ideal time to remove European introduced grasses and weeds, promoting the return of CA native grasses and wildflowers, which once were common in our park.  This improves the wildlife habitat for the birds, animals and insects.  Since the park is enclosed by fencing, all that would be required to exercise this option is to bring in the domestic animals and provide them with water (a plastic tot-swimming pool or bathtub).  These three photos taken in the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge, illustrate the benefit of timed grazing. You are looking out at Vernal pools in the Spring, about mid-March.  An area has been cyclone-fenced to provide a ‘control’.  In this area, the Cattle cannot graze.  What you see is the effectiveness of grazing in removing the European grasses and weeds which fill the fenced-in area and providing room for the native plant seed base to do its thing.  The yellow flowering plants outside the cage are native wildflowers common to Vernal Pools, as are the other ground-plants you see in the photos.  You can imagine the difference in fire-load and, considering the events of last week (a fire in the northern portion of the GOGP), one can see the benefit from timed grazing.