Highland cattle are being employed to help manage and conserve picturesque marshes near Lowestoft. Grazing animals are often used to manage land that would otherwise revert to scrub and woodland and now five Highland cattle have been introduced to the Oulton Marshes, at Oulton Broad, and join a variety of helpful animals keeping things tidy throughout the county.

Highland cattle are being employed to help manage and conserve picturesque marshes near Lowestoft.

Grazing animals are often used to manage land that would otherwise revert to scrub and woodland and now five Highland cattle have been introduced to the Oulton Marshes, at Oulton Broad, and join a variety of helpful animals keeping things tidy throughout the county.

Suffolk Wildlife Trust has already introduced Exmoor, Dartmoor and Konik ponies, Hebridean and speckle-faced Beulah sheep, pygmy goats, rabbits and deer to other sites that risk becoming overgrown and losing precious habitats.

The trust's property and sites manager, Steve Aylward, said: “Grazing animals help eradicate invasive vegetation and reduce fertility which increases the variety of wildlife; different stock has different grazing characteristics. Highland cattle are an extremely hardy breed that tolerates wet conditions well. They're not fussy about what they eat and have tough mouths, which enable them to happily chomp their way through reed, willow scrub and sedge.

This helps prevent the marshes from becoming overgrown and allows typical Broadland plants to thrive.”

Konik ponies are used at the Redgrave and Lopham Fen and have already feasted on 100 hectares of fen, while the Dartmoor ponies have created a distinctive grazing pattern at Dunwich Forest.

There was previously no livestock at the Oulton Marshes, apart from grazing deer, and

the trust had to do a lot of manual mowing. Introducing the cattle will create a natural mosaic of short and tall fen areas rather than blocks of cut vegetation.

“Large herbivores have an important function in an ecosystem, eating and processing huge quantities of vegetation,” added Mr Aylward.