SDSU celebrates rangeland achievement
More than half of South Dakota’s landscape, around 24 million acres, is covered with the most abundant ecosystem in the world, rangeland.
Maintaining the health of rangelands is important to the state’s economy. More than 17,000 family-owned ranches graze more than 4 million beef cattle, 255,000 sheep and nearly 40,000 bison annually, said Krista Ehlert, associate professor of rangeland ecology and management in the Department of Natural Resource Management.
Ehlert and others at South Dakota State University work with landowners — more than 90% of South Dakota rangeland is privately owned — to manage the land that in addition to livestock grazing also provides watershed protection, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration and biodiversity to communities around the state.
PHOTO: A herd of cattle grazing in South Dakota. (iStock │ #184885392 – RiverNorthPhotography)
