Effects of Cattle Traffic on Sclerocactus wrightiae
Cattle grazing has been a historic use of rangelands in Utah since pioneer settlement in the mid-1800’s. Wright fishhook cactus is a small globose cactus endemic to an area of 280,000 ha in south–central Utah and was listed as endangered in October of 1979, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). By 2010, concerns were expressed that soil compaction in proximity to the cactus posed a threat to this species, though there were no empirical data to support such concerns.