Ele Ludemann: If wild animals do this . . .

Wild bison are mitigating carbon emissions:

A herd of 170 bison reintroduced to Romania’s Țarcu mountains could help store CO2 emissions equivalent to removing almost 2m cars from the road for a year, research has found, demonstrating how the animals help mitigate the worst effects of the climate crisis. . .

 

The latest research, which has not been peer-reviewed, used a new model developed by scientists at the Yale School of the Environment and funded by the Global Rewilding Alliance. It calculates the additional amount of atmospheric CO2 that wildlife species help to capture and store in soils through their interactions within ecosystems. The European bison herd grazing in an area of nearly 50 sq km of grasslands within the wider Țarcu mountains, was found to potentially capture an additional 2m tonnes of carbon a year. That is nearly 9.8 times more than without the bison – although the report authors noted the 9.8 figure could be up to 55% higher or lower, given the uncertainty around the median estimate. This corresponds to the yearly CO2 emissions of 1.88m average US petrol cars.

Prof Oswald Schmitz of the Yale School of the Environment in Connecticut in the US, who was the lead author of the report, said: “Bison influence grassland and forest ecosystems by grazing grasslands evenly, recycling nutrients to fertilise the soil and all of its life, dispersing seeds to enrich the ecosystem, and compacting the soil to prevent stored carbon from being released. . .

What’s the difference between the impact of wild bison and free range farmed cattle, deer and sheep?

If wild animals grazing grasslands evenly, recycling nutrients to fertilise soils and compact soil to prevent stored carbon from being released wouldn’t free-range farmed animals do the same?

Could this mean, that New Zealand’s very efficient farming of livestock could be helping to reduce carbon emissions and are an asset to the environment instead of the eco-vandals that we’re told they are?

Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.