From Wild to Domestic to Wild Again: Opportunities with Wild Grazers

Preservation of biodiversity in the open landscape and the grazed ecosystem is a major challenge in conservation biology. Much of today's scientific and applied focus is on domestic grazers, their grazing pressure, and to withhold domestic grazing. The knowledge about wild herbivores and their potential contribution to conservation and management of the open, grazed landscape and its biodiversity is however limited. On the contrary, wild grazers are often problematized, and often regarded as a problem even within biodiversity conservation work. We argue that this is counterproductive, and that wild herbivores may very well assist in the preservation of grazed landscapes, and that the reduced control that undoubtedly follows with wild herbivory is beneficial to biodiversity. We support our arguments with data from a long-term study on grazing preferences of wild fallow deer in Sweden.