GoatScape: no need for pruning shears. Incisors will do just fine!

Biking along the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) in the final days of summer yielded some unexpected opportunities for leaf-peeping.  The GAP, a massive rail-trail conversion linking downtown Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland, allows uninterrupted bike/pedestrian access from the Steel City to Washington DC, by means of a transfer onto the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal Towpath in Cumberland.  Pivoting the focus back to Pittsburgh, we opted for the westernmost portion of the GAP, embarking at the inner-ring suburb of West Homestead, PA—just a few miles east of its terminus at Point State Park in Pittsburgh’s downtown.  The topography and expansive riparian views allowed the autumnal colors to shine through along the Monongahela River, even though it was scarcely after Labor Day.  So early!  At least here in the Mid-Atlantic, it seemed as through trees started to change prematurely this year, after an unusually cool August.  But, amidst the goldening sugar maples and brilliant turmeric gingkoes, another sight along the trail preempted the foliage: hungry goats on the riverbank, managing the landscape.  Or, to borrow the term, the GoatScape. 

It made me recall an article I wrote in the earliest days of this blog, where I witnessed a bunch of cows perched on an unnatural slope right next to a river—a levee—in rural southern Louisiana.  I had never seen large animals forced into a situation where they have no choice but to graze on slanted land.  Even though it looked ridiculous, the cattle seemed to be managing just fine.  Mammals are often pretty adaptable, goats included.  The slope along the Monongahela River is much more natural (no levee), but the image is still strange.  What are goats doing here exactly? 

It turns out we had unexpectedly stumbled upon a dedicated herd of grazing goats, part of a broader effort called called Allegheny GoatScape.  The nonprofit organization, which began as Steel City Grazers in 2015, uses this domesticated, indiscriminate herbivore to tackle invasive and/or noxious plant growth in select areas of Allegheny County (metro Pittsburgh), particularly where humans and machinery struggle to defoliate, like the steep and muddy slope of a riverbank.  With four-chambered stomachs, goats can devour huge volumes of noxious foliage like poison ivy, privet, bittersweet, honeysuckle, or stilt grass, while trampling the remainder with their sturdy hooves.

Although a few common North American plant species are indeed toxic to goats—common milkweed, foxglove, buttercup, and poison hemlock, among others—these scourges are relatively few in number.  And while any person deploying goats to clear certain low-growing plans should take caution to make sure toxins are not present, this risk is sufficiently low that goats are still generally a viable solution.  Many invasive species, unintentionally transported to North America from temperate climates in Asia, grow densely and expansively in a vine-like form, choking other plants by depriving them of sunlight or weighing down tree branches.  Goats, meanwhile, serve as an ecologically friendly way of removing these plantlike pests, while minimizing the need for herbicides that can compromise both the neighboring soil and adjacent watershed.

It’s an unusual setup for the unacquainted, but Allegheny GoatScape offers signage with plenty of explanation for the reason that this herd of approximately a dozen goats stands here, wedged between the GAP and the Monongahela River.  The staff at GoatScape survey an area to determine feasibility and a timeline; it typically takes a herd 12-14 days to eat through one full acre of plant growth.  If a site is suitable, the GoatScape team will clear a perimeter for the fence line, then set up a portable electric fence, along with a solar generator, shelter, and water.  Each herd also gets a mini-donkey supervisor to guard the goats from coyotes or other predators, while sharing the goats’ love of edible greens.  The enterprise creates a temporary habitat, which serves the goats well, while entertaining all the passers-by (look but don’t touch!).  The goats remain at a site until enough vegetation is depleted, then the GoatScape team uproots the fencing and relocates the animals to their next 43,560-square-foot salad bowl.

If it seems like an elaborate undertaking for a relatively small return—an acre really isn’t that big of a piece of land—the GoatScape offers four simultaneously operating herds.  The approximately fifty animals have assisted Pittsburgh Citiparks in clearing invasive plants from the far reaches of their grounds: sections of Frick Park and South Side Park that don’t receive regular curation/maintenance and are thus more susceptible to overgrowth from viney invaders.  But the goats could just as easily devour growth on a vacant residential lot.  The phenomenally hilly terrain of Pittsburgh means a single acre could easily harbor a change in grade above 25%, which is treacherous for humans and nearly impossible for wheeled vehicles.  Goats don’t mind.  The popular and increasingly memetic imagery of goats positioning their wedged hooves along the side of a near-vertical dam, all for the love of mineral salt, demonstrates their resilience when faced with inhospitable terrain.

From the looks of things that day at the Great Allegheny Passage, this GoatScape herd was getting ready to relocate from its temporary West Homestead.  And the operation cannot help but raise the question: does it yield a return?  After all, goats may be comfortable around poison ivy and rocks and unpleasant slopes, but do they get the job done efficiently enough and could they potentially create their own problems with their scat and runoff?  I don’t really know the answer to either, though I expect it’s noncommittal: “it depends”.  For the latter question, animal scat is already prevalent among animals who claim this as their habitat: deer, raccoons, opossums, coyotes.  Probably not a big deal to have some domesticated critters on-site temporarily.  Regarding the efficiency of the enterprise, GoatScape is a 501(c)3 organization because it doesn’t yet have a widely replicable financial model, but the animals themselves do their own marketing, prompting goat-lovers to volunteer or even to sponsor a goat, which means the human benefactor gets named alongside Lucky Lou, or Oreo or Petoskey or Jewel.

As I learned from followers after teasing the idea for this blog, there’s more of a basis for a “GoatScape” than I initially thought.  I just didn’t know the terminology—what to look for in research.  Using goats for brush control has existed as a practice for quite some time; the USDA even published an article over forty years ago.  The practice appears to be more common on the West Coast, where an arid climate combined with prevalent unmaintained brush amplifies the risk of devastating wildfires.  Livestock rental companies allow short-term use of small herds, sized similarly to Allegheny GoatScape, providing the requisite fencing, water, and shelter.  Sheep are popular grazers too, though they tend to prefer tall grasses over the coarse stuff.  

Goat brush clearance is useful enough that some farmers and livestock management entities have transformed it into a viable business.  So why does Allegheny GoatScape in Pittsburgh operate as a nonprofit?  Can’t the goat rental business translate to the east?  Liability could be a factor: the containment must be high quality (and is thus rather expensive); goats who grow tired of their domestic salad bar might test even electric fencing, especially if there’s a power blip.  Donkeys (or dogs or llamas) may not be able to effectively corral a herd of hungry, determined, stubborn billies—incidents like this one in Seattle, though rare, cause enough damage and likely litigation to scare away many small business owners.  A nonprofit organization may shield itself by warning prospective renters of all the risks incurred amidst a charitable mission, and they can absorb some of that risk through a higher, noncompetitive price tag buffeted by the sponsor-a-goat donations.

However, the bigger reason Allegheny GoatScape is nonprofit is the character of the land where they—the goats—do their work: awkward, narrow strips with little intrinsic value.  The riparian land in these photos is highly floodpxone and undevelopable, yet it still deserves environmental protection from invasive, overgrown plants.  Obscure corners of major parks are good candidates too; the public entities will look better if they spend taxpayer dollars on a charitable organization, at least until the price of private for-profit goat rental is sufficiently competitive.  Lastly, the GoatScape pursues overgrown, vacant residential lots—presumably in blighted parts of Pittsburgh (or neighboring suburbs).  The land simply isn’t good real estate, yet it still can suffer from compromised ecology, and overgrown lots where homes used to be are popular sites for dumping.  The goats create an aura of supervision and stewardship in the most neglected nooks in the Steel City.

While goats are a lot cuter than Round-Up or Bush Hogs, the fact remains that—across the vast majority of land area that needs brush clearing—machinery and herbicides will do the job more quickly and cheaply.  Like many nonprofits, Allegheny GoatScape sacrifices efficiency for the sake of an environmentally superior, albeit niche, undertaking.  The practice may not be worth replicating in cities where the topography is more manageable, like much of the Midwest.  But it’s precisely the sort of initiative that justifies the existence of nonprofit as a financing model that can continue to flourish as long as its goal remains unresolved but relatable to a supportive public.  Maybe someday the goat herds will consolidate with other landscaping efforts, and for-profit groundskeeping teams will start deploying goats along with their shears and machinery.  Until then, the goats create a wonderful visual that gets people asking questions.  And, if there’s ever something likely win over the hearts of the general public, cute little animals are the Greatest Of All Time.