City welcomes goats to nature reserve
WE’VE welcomed our newest nature conservation recruits to local wildlife site Hengrove Mounds – goats! More than 75 local people came along to find out more about how Street Goats can help our city’s wildlife to thrive. Hengrove Mounds is a hidden gem near the popular Hengrove Playpark. Continue round the path and you’ll discover a wildlife haven that has developed over an old landfill site. The mounds are home to some spectacular wildlife, including wildflowers such as corky-fruited water drop-wort (what a name!), birds foot trefoil and the beautiful bee orchid, along with some unusual insects like the nationally scarce carrot-mining bee – a small solitary bee that feeds its young with the pollen from the wild carrot wildflower!
Over recent years, scrubby patches at Hengrove Mounds have overcrowded grasslands full of wildflowers, which support a whole host of wildlife like bees, butterflies, moths, birds and small mammals. A more sustainable and natural way to keep scrub at bay is to use grazing animals. The goats’ hardy nature and ability to forage in scrubby bramble patches make them excellent conservation grazing animals. Nibbling the bramble patches will help limit the spread of scrub across the site, enabling wildflowers to flourish and the wildlife that depends on these flowers and grasses to thrive. Goats are also able to climb low branches of trees – by chomping new shoots and leaves they clip trees such as hawthorn into dense balls, which provide brilliant habitats for nesting birds.
Goats have been brought in to graze the overgrown area as part of a partnership project between urban goat farming collective Street Goat, Bristol City Council and Avon Wildlife Trust’s My Wild City project.
With thanks to National Lottery players and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, My Wild City focuses on eight wildlife sites across Bristol, including Hengrove Mounds and Hawkfield Meadow, making improvements for wildlife and visitors, and encouraging everyone to get involved in enjoying and caring for these special wild spaces.
There’s been an overwhelmingly positive response to the goats on the mounds. We even celebrated their arrival with a goat-shaped cake and a goat’s milk loaf of bread baked by local volunteers!
In his blog, Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees said the council was “thrilled to welcome these furry, four-legged grazers on site”.
Ian Barrett, chief executive of Avon Wildlife Trust, added: “By allowing animals’ natural grazing habits to manage the site, Bristol City Council, with the help of Street Goat and the local community, should be able to maintain this land for the benefit of wildlife through natural processes, without having to resort to expensive and environmentally costly machinery.”
You can visit the goats anytime and enter their fenced enclosure. Please make sure dogs are on short leads and to shut gates behind you. Please don’t feed the goats, they have nature’s banquet to feed from!
To follow the progress of the herd and others across Bristol, visit the Street Goat Facebook page or join the Friends of Hengrove Mounds and Hawkfield Meadows Facebook Group.