Goats return for fifth year of target grazing in city parks

Around 200 goats are back target grazing in some of the city parks for another year. For five years now, the animals have been used to help control invasive weeds in the river valley. Since the inception of the program, the goats have grazed over 750 hectares of weeds.  

“Goats are a great asset to have, especially in our river valley parks. Our river valleys are very sensitive. We’re right near the river. We don’t want to use a lot of chemical or a lot of mechanical removal for weed species or vegetation management. So the goats are great. They come in, they target the weeds that we need them to target, and they don’t disturb anything else. We are covering about 88 acres in four weeks, and they’re covering the entire floodplain area of two parks. And so they’re going out, they’re targeting these weeds. They’re not doing mass damage. They’re not bringing in trucks. They’re not buying chemical. They’re not supplying manpower.”

City officials say the goats are brought into Alexander Wilderness Park and Indian Battle Park twice per summer.