PRESS RELEASE

10 May 2010

Cows on Conservation Mission

Now that spring has finally sprung, Cheshire Wildlife Trust’s herd of Longhorn cows have made their annual return to Gowy Meadows Nature Reserve after the winter break – and this year they will take part in a special conservation experiment.

They will be used to work out what levels of grazing are needed to benefit certain wildflowers and other species.

The cows, calves and bulls turned out to graze on the nature reserve are kept by the Trust as part of its Conservation Grazing Scheme and play a key role in managing nature reserves and delicate habitats in Cheshire.

During wintertime they are kept at CWT’s Bickley farm headquarters but in the spring and summer they are put out to pasture on nature reserves around the county. This includes a grazing project at Gowy Meadows, a floodplain grazing marsh site owned by Shell UK.

The grazing scheme on the nature reserve is funded by a £113,000 donation from WREN – a not for profit business that distributes grants from environment taxes paid by landfill operator WRG. The money was donated from WREN’s Biodiversity Action Fund, a grant scheme which will commit £10 million over five years to projects that restore, revive and conserve natural habitat projects across the UK. Last year more than £1.6 million was awarded from the fund to nine projects run by the RSPB, The Wildlife Trusts and Butterfly Conservation.

Richard Gardner, Living Landscapes Manager for Cheshire Wildlife Trust said: “Normally the cattle at the Gowy are grazed together in large areas but this year, a unique experiment will take place.

“They will be set to chomp different sections of the meadows to test how the number of cows per patch can help or hinder the wildlife species to be found on the site. For example a small number of cows may help grasses to grow but not wildflowers, while a larger number of cows may help wildflowers but not ground-nesting birds.”

English Longhorns are a traditional British breed and even though they may look fierce they are actually quite docile. These cattle are the best grazing animals to remove coarse grasses as they thrive on poor vegetation. Rather than nibbling or chomping the vegetation they wrap their tongues around the grass and pull it into their mouths, creating tussocks that provide micro-habitats for mini-beasts, and exposing pockets of bare earth that enable seeds to set.

Machinery cannot imitate the trampling benefits provided by the cattle’s feet nor deal with the differing heights of vegetation.

The results from the experiment will help landowners and conservationists make future decisions about grazing practices on other sites where they wish to encourage or reduce particular species of plants and creatures.

For information about sponsoring a cow with Cheshire Wildlife Trust please see www.cheshirewildlifetrust.co.uk or call 01948 820728.

For more information about WREN and the Biodiversity Action Fund please visit www.wren.org.uk or call 01953 717165