Grazing - YESTERDAY

Domestic Animals Replace the Large Wild Animals

With the advent of the Neolithic period around 7,500 years ago in the Weinviertel, the first settled farmers arrived in Central Europe, bringing with them the domesticated descendants of the aurochs and wild horses.

Over the following millennia, these domesticated animals temporarily filled the ecological role left by their wild ancestors, although wild and domestic animals initially coexisted side by side. Particularly in the Weinviertel, the semi-dry meadows of the Nature Park were used for grazing livestock for centuries. As late as the 19th century, grazing cattle was common, with animals only being kept in barns during the winter months. The grazing animals temporarily created similar habitats to those once formed by the wild animals. However, as agricultural practices intensified, these wild landscapes began to disappear.

The last remaining remnants of species-rich pastures in the Weinviertel are now predominantly found in protected areas. In the 1970s, the high value of open landscapes was recognized, which led to the establishment of the Nature Park Leiser Berge. However, as has been seen in other regions, simply establishing a protected area is not enough to maintain biodiversity. Without active management, vegetation becomes overgrown, shrubs become denser, and the young forests that often dominate today no longer offer the diversity of species that could be found in a varied pasture landscape.