Calgary bringing in the goats
City using a herd of B.C. goats to help with weed control in popular park
A herd of hardworking and hungry goats are back to graze the lands and for the first time, they’ve made their way into the middle of the city. The 133 weed munchers, who came from Kimberley, B.C., are part of an innovative weed-management program that will take place over the next couple of weeks at McHugh Bluff in Sunnyside.
“This is the first time we’ve had a grazing project where people’s backyards butt up against the park itself,” said Chris Manderson, urban conservation lead for Calgary Parks.
“This is a bit of an adventure for us to see how that would be received. So far it’s been really positive, people are happy to see them.”
Danielle Devine and her children were very excited Tuesday morning to meet the goats.
“I thought it was so cool because we had seen a news story a year ago about them starting to experiment with goats for weed control,” Devine said. “We’re very interested to meet the goats and learn more about them and hope it’s a success for Calgary.”
Devine said her family has noticed that in areas where herbicides have been applied dandelions and thistles grow back, but prairie sage doesn’t.
“I have a daughter named Sage so that plant is very special to us. Every year we try to take a picture of Sage with the sage,” said Devine .
Denise Daigle, one of the shepherds, said the community around them has really taken to their new neighbours.
She said Monday night, she noticed a young woman standing by an outer pen where they keep two goats — one of them, Arrow, has a bent neck.
“She said ‘I couldn’t sleep, I live five minutes away, I’ve just come to see Arrow’,” Devine said. “It started to rain so I told her to come into my camper. She was in my camper for 45 minutes and she was just enthralled and just love animals.”
The cost of the goat program is similar to the use of herbicides, roughly $1,500 per hectare, but Manderson says the benefits exceed the costs.