California Dispatches Goats to Eat Brush, Prevent Wildfires

[staticassertion]

The national park service does this in NYC. It's a win win situation, goats eat the grass, and everyone gets to hang out with goats.

The article paints this as unusual but if the NPS was doing this in NYC that seems unlikely? It was over a decade ago when I was there and I think I was told it was somewhat standard.

[8_hours_ago]

This article seems to resurface every few years. It even mentions that it isn’t new, but I think you are right, this has been going on for much longer than 5 years in other places

> The concept’s not unique to Ventura County, which has been using goats to trim vegetation for about five years.

[forkLding]

I remember that Amazon Home Services had a goat rental service couple years back for mowing your lawns, not sure if still there.

https://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/24/meet-goats-amazons-new-g...

EDIT: Found it, seems like these are the guys that provided the actual goats: http://www.rentaruminant.com/ they're all over the US.

[mgberlin]

Except that goats don't eat grass, they eat brush. You'd want sheep for that.

[whiddershins]

I spent several hours looking in to raising dragonflies and releasing them to combat mosquitoes but it seems impractical in the end.

[ip26]

Build a bat box, drain standing water, and cultivate a native garden with plants that attract native predatory insects. Dragonflies, tiny wasps, lady bugs, spiders, etc. Then they'll do all the hard work for you.

It's the same with worms. Breed & release into barren soil, and they'll just flee to greener pastures. But cultivate conditions they like, and they will show up all on their own.

[taysic]

This has been happening for many years, at least in the bay area

[Animats]

Yes. The SF Water Department uses goats to keep the Hetch Hetchy water pipeline route clear. The pipeline route is long, narrow, and goes through hills, so it's hard to mow. They fence off a section with portable electric fence and put in about a hundred goats. In a day or two all the brush is gone. Then, on to the next section.

Some of the larger parks use sheep to graze down large grassy open areas. The goats are more useful in hilly areas and less picky about what they will eat.

[duxup]

There are several goat services in my area driving around with trailers full of goats in Minnesota.

They deploy them in parks to eat / manage invasive growth, or just "mow" overgrown areas for private folks who have a lot of land. They're really handy for steep hilly areas that need to be cleaned out.

Before that when I grew up in a rural area if you had a horse(s) you'd just tie them to the fence along the road and they'd trim the ditches quite nicely.

[huffmsa]

Going to have a mountain lion problem in 2-3 years.

[dbcurtis]

Actually 2-3 nights is a better estimate, in practice, as I understand it.

OK, so apologies as this is literally a second-hand shaggy-dog story, but here goes:

I coordinate the maintenance of a privately maintained road in the Sierra foothills. I was chatting with the equipment operator we use while waiting for the new tire to arrive to repair a flat on his grader. Anyway... his sister-in-law does goatherd contracts for CALTRANS to manage roadside vegetation. His wife's family is Basque heritage, so there is multiple generations of sheep and goat herding expertise there.

Usually, she deploys 2 or 3 big sheep dogs along with the goats to deter predation. One time on a contract along I-5 she wasn't able to bring the dogs for the first night, and lost two goats to mountain lions overnight.

The cats are out there... they hide well.

[username223]

They should deploy some guard llamas. They are a real thing, and actually kind of awesome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_llama

EDIT (because I'm apparently "posting too fast"): Yes, dogs traditionally do this in Europe, the States, and other places. I just thought it was interesting that llamas can also do it, since they aren't carnivores. The details of why they do it are also interesting.

[idlewords]

Mountain lion opportunity.

[jonnycomputer]

In the 19th century goats devastated the native landscape of California and introduced the Mediterranean grasses that give California its moniker The Golden State. The headline picture of this article illustrates my main concern: that these goats will do further harm to native plant species. On balance, it may still be a good idea, but how it is done may require more thought.

[badpun]

> In the 19th century goats devastated the native landscape of California and introduced the Mediterranean grasses that give California its moniker The Golden State

I always thought it was because the gold rush happened literally weeks after the state's incorporation, and fundamentally shaped it in many ways?

[imglorp]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but the most natural situation is periodic small fires that reduce the undergrowth and dead wood. There are even species which depend on these small fires for their lifecycles. Forest managers are probably well schooled in this but unable to use it because people like living in the woods.

When humans interfere with this small-fire process, however, the fuel load increases until there's a massive correcting fire that takes everything standing including the canopy.

[maxxxxx]

I thought sheep were the problem. what kind of vegetation did CA have before?

[floatingatoll]

When life gives you wildfires, make chèvre.

[mitfahrener]

And mutton

[pedrosorio]

Slightly longer read on the same approach in Portugal:

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-goat-brigades-portugal-deadly-...

[ende]

Has anyone compared the efficacy of goats vs raking the forests.

[floatingatoll]

If you can figure out a way to brew popular beer out of forest brush, there's a thriving culture of microbrewers who would trample your door down with their mash rakes in hand.

[gandreani]

The area where the goats trim will likely have thicker foaliage next year. Grazing by animals is a natural part of the ecosystem. The dead foliage that they eat is turned into poop which fertilizes the ground

I learned about it from this Ted Talk. Not sure if it's legit but it seems to make intuitive sense to me https://youtu.be/vpTHi7O66pI

[olliej]

Weren't there also beavers being introduced at one point as well (beaver dams slow the outflow of water, allowing it to actually soak into the ground rather than just running straight to the ocean)

[username223]

Oh yeah...

Beavers were being air-dropped, and there are movies of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrOE-m7sX9E

[mmanfrin]

My neighbors and I rented some goats to clear up our properties in Berkeley. It was pretty neat, they are very fast eaters. Took 3 goats about a day and a half to clear out our yards.

[blondie9x]

Good idea but why isn't this done more often and why wasn't it done before?

[floatingatoll]

Goats are low-tech, can’t be patented, require regular upkeep intervals, and have a tendency to consume resources and reproduce without profit paid to the seller.

American culture at one point decided that machines were the only way to control the wilderness. Happily, we seem to be unlearning both the machines and the control lessons.

[plorkyeran]

It is done quite often and has been done in California for decades. Every few years a reporter finds out that goats are used for fire control for the first time and writes something that makes it sound like a new thing.

[username223]

> why wasn't it done before?

I saw (fenced-in) goats trimming grass in the Berkeley Hills as far back as 2000. I'm sure people were doing it long before then.

> why isn't this done more often

Possibly because it's hard to make sure than none of the goats escape, breed, and wreak havoc on the native species. Eradicating invasive species can be unbelievably expensive and brutal (e.g. helicopters and machine guns), even on small islands. Hopefully they've embedded GPS trackers in all of their goats, but I still suspect that they're taking chances.

[h2odragon]

Among other reasons, "portable electric fences" as mentioned elsewhere haven't been a reliable or cheap thing until quite recently.

[calciphus]

> The concept’s not unique to Ventura County, which has been using goats to trim vegetation for about five years.

In areas where fires haven't historically been as bad, it hasn't been necessary. A decade-long drought and environmental changes make things done elsewhere (Bay Area, for example) appealing in a new region.

[lamarpye]

I have heard about programs like this for 20 years.

[ngngngng]

Goats have been eating grass and preventing fires for tens of thousands of years. Don't know why it would surprise anybody at this point.

[tonyedgecombe]

I always thought they didn’t eat much grass, they prefer other plants or even the bark off trees before they ate grass.

[randyrand]

Does this mean California government is taking some responsibility for the forest fires? Or is it still legally all PG&Es fault?

[deboboy]

There an app for this; like Goater?

[ngngngng]

I think Californias would go for this. A lawn service that just brings goats to your house once a week.

[glassriver]

THIS IS THE ONLY ANSWER GOATS ARE BEST!!!