For years, sheep have been the default grazing animal across Britain's uplands, quietly shaping the landscape without anyone really questioning it. But a new set of studies from the Yorkshire Dales suggests cows might actually be doing a much better job, at least if you care about butterflies. Researchers at the University of Leeds studied what happened when a large stretch of land at Ingleborough switched from sheep to cattle grazing, and the results were striking. Not only did wildflowers bounce back in a big way, butterfly numbers shot up too, including some genuinely rare species that had been struggling for years. It turns out the simple choice of which animal grazes a field can make a huge difference to what survives in it.
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