Riverside park goats
Two years ago Riverside Park in New York had a problem with invasive weeds in an inaccessible part of the park. The solution? - goats. And now the animals are back to do their best against the weeds once again.
New York’s nickname is Gotham which means “goat town” in Old English. The Riverside Park Conservancy says although it originally meant as a put-down “New Yorkers embraced the name. ‘Goat town’ was an apt description of the undeveloped Upper West Side where goats used to roam.”
Thjs year’s Riverside Park goats will be munching there for the rest of the New York summer.
In 2019 the Conservancy brought a herd of goats to Gotham, to create Goatham. The animals had all retired from former careers and were from a local farm.
They took up residency for the 2019 summer. The Conservancy teams says “since goats are naturally effective weed whackers, putting them to work in Goatham is like treating them to an all-you-can-eat buffet. It’s hearty for the goats and good for the environment.”
This year’s plans saw a new herd released in the trouble spot on July 14 - the animals will stay there for the rest of the New York summer.
They will roam a two-acre area — within a fenced enclosure — “continuously consuming the weeds all the way down to the roots, which stunts the plants’ normal growth trajectory by making them start all over — only to be eaten again. After a few months, the plants’ ability to grow will have been weakened, and perhaps eliminated altogether,” says the Conservancy team.
They says goats and their giant appetites have been widely used by farmers, and recently, by nearby parks to assist in controlling and suppressing the growth of these detrimental invasive plants.
“Not only do goats eat almost constantly — they can consume 25% of their own body weight in vegetation in just one day — but their fecal matter adds nutrients to the soil as they go. It’s an all around win — a sustainable, chemical-free method of removing invasive species from a landscape.”
Ahead of their release - the community was given an opportunity to name the GOAT (greatest of all time) goat - you can see more about that in the video below.
