Known as nature’s lawnmowers, these goats have been hard at work clearing overgrown areas across the Bay Area, chomping on poison oak, thistle and Himalayan blackberry.
. Goats can be picky eaters, as evidenced by their apparent avoidance of the foxtails that had sprouted into feathery fronds before Church and her goats arrived at the Presidio site. But in general, their competitive nature and lightning-fast metabolisms make them excellent consumers of woody shrubs, invasive species and various other plants that pose a fire risk.
Over the past decade, Church has seen San Francisco’s once-verdant hillsides transform into tinderboxes waiting to ignite. Before “you might worry about encampments, you might worry about rodents, you worry about undesirable wildlife populations, but you weren’t worried about fire,” she said. “Now, we’re worried about fire.”
Once a seasonal activity, grazing takes place nearly year-round from the hillsides of Marin County to Muni yards in downtown San Francisco. “Now I have people saying, ‘How quickly can you get here? I want this done in March’ because fire season really starts earlier and earlier every year,” said Church.
“That native vegetation is really what we want to leave on the landscape,” said Soares. “The animals are a tool that helps at particular times to improve the impact of vegetation on the soil. They help the plants do what needs to be done — the plants are taking the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Photosynthesis is making it happen. Then we’re shoving that carbon back down into the soil.”
But when managed properly, these herds can save lives and restore ecosystems. This month, thousands of Soares’ goats are scheduled to be released into the hillsides of Marin County, where retired San Francisco Fire Department Assistant Deputy Chief Rich Shortall oversees the region as the executive coordinator of the nonprofit Fire Safe Marin.
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