| Grassland Evaluation Contest Study Guide | Fifth Edition: October 2005 |
| Wildlife Habitat | |
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Wildlife Cover In Grasslands: If properly managed, grasslands can also provide cover or protection for nesting and roosting. Soft cover or herbaceous cover is the vegetative growth consisting of grasses and broad leaved plants. Shrubby cover (brush) consists of woody plants, usually with multiple stems that arise from a common base. These plants are generally less that fifteen feet tall at maturity. When they grow close together to form a thicket, these plants provide escape cover for quail and other small animals. These areas also provide browse for deer and the dense branches provide nesting areas for many songbirds. Hard cover (tree/shrub) is perennial, woody-stemmed tree species that reach a height of over twenty feet. Escape cover, where a rabbit or quail can escape predators such as foxes, coyotes and hawks, however, consists of dense brush piles that are often found adjacent to the grassland. The hard cover and escape cover should be protected from grazing.
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