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Sudden Oak Death Coverage Ignores Grazing
by Alison Chaiken — published April 01, 2007
The article about sudden oak death (SOD) in the October-December 2006 issue was informative about one major threat to our oak woodlands but ignored the 800-pound gorilla, namely cattle grazing in our parks. Because cattle destroy oak seedlings, all the trees in grazed areas are mature or even senescent. While SOD may or may not cause complete devastation of our local oaks, there is no doubt that as today's oaks die, our hillsides will be denuded. Concentrating so much energy on SOD while ignoring the politically sensitive topic of grazing in parks makes no sense. If we're going to discuss threats to oak woodlands, let's discuss all of them!
—Alison Chaiken, Fremont
Oak experts we asked agreed that cattle grazing is a major problem for oak regeneration in the open oak woodland and grassland habitats of the inland Coast Ranges and Sierra foothills. Relatively little grazing occurs in the dense coastal forests where SOD is most prevalent. Poor oak regeneration has many causes, likely including changes in fire frequency and competition from exotic annual grasses.
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