For Release: August 19, 2026
Contact:
Laura Cunningham, California Director, Western Watersheds Project, lcunningham@westernwatersheds.
Nina House, California Botanic Garden, ninahouse@berkeley.edu, 315-751-8363
New Study Finds Ungrazed Sierra Nevada Meadow Healthier Than Livestock-Grazed Meadows
Recovery on ungrazed meadow in the Sequoia Nation Forest shows remarkable resilience to aid golden trout streams
BAKERSFIELD, Ca. — Western Watersheds Project and the California Botanic Garden released a report today titled, “Inventorying and monitoring of grazed and ungrazed meadows, streams, and associated plant communities, and recommended best management practices,” that demonstrates the impact of various livestock grazing intensities on meadows in the Sequoia National Forest. The report demonstrates that ungrazed habitats had greater plant diversity and more abundant meadow vegetation than grazed sites, and contained clear, cold stream water in golden trout habitat.
Two years of data gathering was conducted to understand how to best conserve native meadow and riparian plant communities, maintain functioning stream morphology, and improve water quality. Such improvements can increase associated fish and wildlife species—such as trout and breeding birds.
Recommendations based on this scientific survey were sent to the Sequoia National Forest after its recent Forest Land Use Plan revision, in order to help Forest managers align field observations with management.
This inventorying and monitoring project originated with a floristic inventory initiated by the California Botanic Garden, under permit with botanist Nina House, to collect plant specimens in a study area comprising the Salmon Creek and Manter Creek watersheds.
“Floristic inventories are a means of documenting all of the known plants that occur in a specific area,” said Nina House, research associate with the California Botanic Garden. “They set a baseline of botanical knowledge, informing our understanding of plant distributions and ecosystem health. One of the main products of floristic inventories are herbarium specimens, which serve as physical, verifiable records of biodiversity. They are the foundation for many forms of botanical research, enabling scientists to track environmental shifts, understand plant relationships, and ultimately guide conservation strategies.”
Surveys were undertaken in the Manter and Salmon Creek watersheds in the southern Sierra Nevada, in Tulare County, California. Specific locations included prominent meadows such as Big Meadow, Horse Meadow, and Manter Meadow, and their immediate borders.
Cattle-grazed meadows were compared with the ungrazed Manter Meadow in the Manter Creek watershed, which drains to the South Fork of the Kern River within the Domeland Wilderness.
Over the course of 86 field days during the months of April through September, in the years 2019 through 2021, 1411 herbarium specimens were collected in the Manter and Salmon Creek watersheds. The Jepson Flora Project (2024) was primarily used while identifying specimens, with the Flora of North America (1993+) consulted, as well. Approximately 1147 historical collections had been collected in the two watersheds prior to this project. Of those, approximately 250 were reviewed and annotated from several herbaria. These specimens were prioritized for examination because they represented taxa that were not encountered during field work or were easily accessible at the home herbarium of the researcher. Examining historically collected rare taxa was also prioritized. The results of the full floristic inventory were published in May 2026 and can be found in the 44th volume (issue 1) of the scientific journal Aliso.
Grazing impacts were documented in a monitoring effort during two field trips, using qualitative measures of vegetation in order to rapidly assess several sites and compare grazed and ungrazed meadows and other vegetation types. Surveyors used qualitative visual observation methods and ocular estimates to assess grazing impacts based on the range monitoring methodology, Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health. Indicators of grazing pressure observed included presence and descriptions of rills, gullies, erosional water flow patterns, bare ground, pedestals on grasses, wind scour and depositional areas, leaf litter, soil compaction, plant vigor, dead or dying plants, and any invasive plants.
Riparian vegetation, spring and stream morphology, streambank alteration, meadow type and function, and qualitative observations of water quality, such as turbidity and shade, were noted. We referred to several different lentic and lotic monitoring methodologies to gain an understanding of how to assess grazing impacts to riparian areas, streams, wetlands, meadows, and other aquatics habitats.
“Comparison among grazing regimes was used to identify changes caused by cattle grazing in similar and adjacent meadows,” said Laura Cunningham, California director with Western Watersheds Project. “Ungrazed meadows such as Manter Meadow can be used as reference sites in order to better understand how to manage grazed meadows towards functioning condition following land use plans.”
Early warning signs of downward trends in meadow and stream function such as patches of bare ground, cheatgrass, and declining water quality were found.
Some native meadow grasses disappeared with even moderate grazing, such as alkali bluegrass (Poa secunda ssp. juncifolia), but they may be able to return rather quickly from the seedbed with rest from cattle. Other native grasses shrank in basal diameter and height with grazing pressure.
The importance of vacant allotments is highlighted by the study. Manter Meadow in the Domeland Wilderness Area, closed to cattle grazing, had higher plant diversity, greater biomass of grasses, sedges, forbs, and healthy, clean streams with golden trout. Passive restoration works here, as historic heavy grazing pressure was removed and the meadow is now managed for occasional pack stock and not for commercial livestock grazing.
“We’ll continue to track Forest management on the grazed allotments and record ongoing recovery in the ungrazed Wilderness allotments,” said Cunningham.
“Ongoing surveys are vital to our understanding of the health of these meadows and all of the biodiversity that depends on them,” said House.
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Background
Particular attention was given to describing plant diversity on the allotments, and vegetation types.
Some plants gave hints at past ecological states: for instance, some native aquatic grasses may grow in areas that were past beaver ponds along streams, even where the beavers and their associated dams are long gone.
A fen documented at the edge of Big Meadow provided unique habitat for plants not found in other survey sites. These mineral-rich wetlands, formed by groundwater seepage or surface water, are extremely sensitive ecosystems that rely on precise conditions to form. At this particular site, we found slender starry ladies’ tresses (Spiranthes perexilis), the only known occurrence in the two watersheds. Cattle grazing poses a high risk to this delicate habitat and the unique plants found there.
The ungrazed Manter Meadow had a clear, clean, icy-cold, deep stream full of golden trout, with overhanging sedges and meadow grasses. Springs in this meadow were lush with tall meadow grasses. Meadow vegetation subtypes were also described, such as ephemeral swales with native annual hairgrass (Deschampsia danthonioides).
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