The herders' perception of the importance of grassland ecosystem services has become an essential prerequisite for promoting ecological conservation in pastoral areas as well as sustainable development of herders' livelihoods. The collaborative development of grassland pastoral areas can't be achieved without herders' extensive participation and positive response. Based on 180 herding households' field research data in Kalajun Grassland, this article adopts gray relational analysis (GRA) to explore the overall correlation between ecological perceptions and livelihood choices according to the analysis of herders' perceptions of grassland ecosystem services and livelihood choices and multivariate logistic models to explore the specific effects of perceptions of ecosystem services on livelihood choices. The results show that:(1) The level of perception of ecosystem services is, in order, regulation services (79.83%) > support services (78.21%) > cultural services (77.06%), and the highest level of perception of gas regulation (82.67%) and the lowest level of perception of research and education (72.11%). (2) The overall correlations between perceptions of ecosystem services and livelihood choices are all above 0.47, and it is a moderate correlation level. (3) The perception of ecosystem services has a relatively significant effect on the selection of tourism-livestock part-time livelihoods, with gas regulation and soil conservation positively influencing tourism-livestock part-time livelihood selection and waste treatment negatively affecting it. The herders' perception of grassland ecosystem services is related to their life choices, reveals their attitude towards grassland ecological protection, and reflects their acceptance and fulfillment of grassland ecological protection policies. Although pastoralists' perception of grassland ecosystem services is generally at an upper-middle level, it is less effective in guiding livelihood choices, showing the characteristic of " It is easier to understand the reasoning of things, but harder to implement them." Most of the herders are mainly "conservative" herding livelihoods, while only a few choose "adventurous" tourism livelihoods. In the future, a combination of refining herders' own internal strengths and strengthening external government policies are needed to give the new generation of herders sufficient strength to meet the challenges of new livelihoods. On the one hand, it is necessary to practice "internal capabilities" and organize herders to participate in skills training activities so as to enhance the ability of herders to change jobs. On the other hand, by providing external support, the government plays a vital role in the transformation of livelihoods of herders, should give full play to the part of the government to protect the backbone.