Goats wanted to clean up bosque

[feclnogn]

I found this on my local news page. Interesting approach. If these guys clear out the salt cedar to nothing I won't complain.

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District is looking for hundreds of goats to help clear a stretch of the Rio Grande bosque in Albuquerque.

Conservancy district biologist Sterling Grogan said the goats will eat undergrowth and nonnative plants like Russian olive and salt cedar, but leave grasses alone.

He says the goats will be herded the entire time they are in the bosque.

The goats are to be in the bosque for about a month beginning in September.

A recently completed goat project in Socorro successfully cleared salt cedar from a stretch of the bosque.

The district is soliciting bids from goat-owners, hoping to get several hundred to a thousand goats familiar with vegetation clearing.



(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

 

[JoseCuervo]

I think some developer brought Goats into a place in AZ, in order to infect the local Wild Sheep herd, resulting in the herd being wiped out. He was then gonna be able to develop without the limitations of the wild sheep around.

We have some places up in Idaho where the goats are doing weed control. Kind of a mixed bag. Some places it is ok, but I think up above Hell's Canyon, they think some of the Sheep are getting sick from the domestic goats.

 

[1_pointer]

Goats can be a GREAT tool for rehabing areas or controlling weeds. Here's a person doing just that:

Livestock for Landscapes

Goats and sheep are being used in No. UT to control Dyer's Woad, a noxious weed in UT. Goats are used yearly to control weeds along the damn/shoreline of Willard Bay Reservior in UT. Goats are being used to turn lava fields into 'soil' in Hawaii and also being used in CA to open unburned scrub oak areas into oak savannas.