Evaluating Sheep Grazing as a Strategy for Restoring the North Campus Open Space (NCOS) Grasslands

The Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (Cheadle Center) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) restores North Campus Open Space (NCOS), an area previously converted from wetlands and uplands to a golf course. Invasive plants are a persistent problem on site and must be managed using restoration techniques, but localized methods like hand or flame weeding can be time and resource intensive. Short-term rotational sheep grazing was utilized to reduce thatch and invasive species seed banks and biomass to encourage native species growth in the spring. To investigate immediate impacts of grazing on the abundance of key species and assess the efficacy of the sheep grazing regime in reducing thatch and invasive species biomass, pre-grazing and post-grazing biomass samples were collected and compared. The seed viability of key species was also evaluated by collecting sheep pellets, spreading them over soil-covered flats, and observing plant growth from January-May 2025.