Goats go head-to-head with weeds in Rundle Park

Using a herd of goats to control noxious weeds in a park is way more complex than just turning them loose and letting them eat.

Jeannette Hall’s herd of nearly 200 goats are spending this week in Rundle Park where they are tackling swaths of yellow leafy spurge and other weeds.

But there’s an art and science to guiding them through the hills, penning them in to focus on really infested areas, then dancing lightly across other hills to avoid damaging the native species, she said.

“There’s at least seven different grasses here,” she said Saturday, pointing to a green hillside. “This will be open. We’re not going to fence them in at this spot. It will be lighter browsing but more frequent visits.”

Edmonton’s Rundle Park has a major problem with weeds. Since the city cut out almost all traditional herbicides, leafy spurge has taken off. It sends seeds flying several metres when the dry pods explode and has rapidly expanded its territory across the park. It’s “problematic,” said Joy Lakhan, who’s overseeing the pilot project for the city. The city is paying $30,000 for the goats to eat the weeds throughout the summer and Olds College researchers are helping to measure the efficacy of the trial by counting weed density before and after.

Hall’s goats are specially trained to eat 70 types of noxious weeds before they go for the native plants and grasses. It’s something the young goats learn from their mothers, who were originally trained by university researchers.

Goats in general have a strong gut that breaks down the seeds rather than spreading them through their poop. And they’re one of the only animals that can digest leafy spurge, which is toxic to cattle and causes millions of dollars in damages in fields across the province.

The goats will be back several times during the summer, and city officials will schedule more events for members of the public to meet them in August and September. This week, they can be seen from the bike paths near the golf course in Rundle Park.

Hall said having animals like goats in Edmonton’s park has other benefits, too. The grasslands used to look much different 200 years ago, when grass fire and herds of elk and bison were still shaping the landscape.

She dug into a patch of grass Saturday, pulling aside the top to illustrate. The thatch was so thick, it took several tries to get through. “The grass is actually struggling to come back,” she said. “When we don’t take care of thatch like that, the only thing that comes through is the invasive weeds.”

A patch of grass normally has young, teenage and old plants, she added. But many of Edmonton’s parks only have old plants. Regular browsing would lead to younger plants, which send their roots deeper in to the earth. That sequesters carbon and helps the soil, she said. “Throw on that goat poop and pee, and we’re winning.”