The Velavadar blackbuck sanctuary in Gujarat holds one of the last large herds of blackbuck in the world. What keeps that grassland open is not conservation fencing or replanting. It is fire and cattle. Remove both, and within a decade the short sward that blackbuck need to spot a predator at 200 metres closes into shoulder-height lantana and prosopis scrub. The animal disappears not because it was hunted but because its habitat was tidied into something it cannot use.
