Plants grazed before or during this process are at a big disadvantage to non-native, competitive short grass species. In turn, if the tallgrass patch is grazed in winter, or early spring as the management plan requires, it gives the native plants an edge over the short grasses and invasive weeds which bloom, and end up being eaten, at this time. Cows have historically been grazed in Boulder since the late 1800 s. This particular patch of tallgrass is nearly at the end of a twenty-year grazing contract dished out by the federal government 14 years ago under a program that no longer exists. Open Space has tried repeatedly to move the grazing east of highway 93, with no success.
Many ranchers are under pressure from shrinking land availability in Boulder Valley.
Sometimes more eastern lands are simply not there. Or simply not good enough, as the case may be. According to Riedel, most of the scarce eastern agricultural fields are not adequate for grazing, as they are planted with hay or crops. Now the prairie must wait six more years for adequate management, and in the meantime its very existence is at risk. According to Tim Seastedt, ecologist and professor of biology at the University of Colorado, the management plan for what he calls Colorado s rarest ecosystem is insufficient to protect the tallgrass prairie.