I have heard speech after speech on what brilliant range managers buffalo were and about the pristine quality of the range when only buffalo used it. With this in mind I have come up with ten principles of range management simple enough for even mutant teenage buffalo. I believe these ten principles to be the least common denominators in range management. As a plant community recovers from disturbance, the population species shift from annuals to grasses, to shrubs, to trees.
Nothing ever stays the same in nature.
It is dynamic, there is no status quo. The life forms and species of plants in a biotic community will change for better or worse depending on the intensity or type of use, within the constrains imposed by climate, soil, topography, and time. Rest from grazing will allow the dominant plants to change from annual weeds, to perennial grasses, to shrubs, to trees. If there are too many trees or shrubs, a pasture is becoming stagnant from over-rest. If there are too many annual weeds, the pasture is being overused or was mistreated in the past.