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A comment on California Dispatches Goats to Eat Brush, Prevent Wildfires. Parent comment

Re:California Dispatches Goats to Eat Brush, Prevent Wildfires by Animats on Saturday May 04, 2019 @02:03PM (#19828085)
Yes. The SF Water Department uses goats to keep the Hetch Hetchy water pipeline route clear. The pipeline route is long, narrow, and goes through hills, so it's hard to mow. They fence off a section with portable electric fence and put in about a hundred goats. In a day or two all the brush is gone. Then, on to the next section.

Some of the larger parks use sheep to graze down large grassy open areas. The goats are more useful in hilly areas and less picky about what they will eat.

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Re:California Dispatches Goats to Eat Brush, Prevent Wildfires by lostlogin on Saturday May 04, 2019 @02:41PM (#19828354)
> The goats are more useful in hilly areas and less picky about what they will eat.

This sort of thing is a problem here in New Zealand. Fragile environments get hit hard by goats, but I’d imagine that wildfires aren’t exactly helpful either.

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Re:California Dispatches Goats to Eat Brush, Prevent Wildfires by bch on Saturday May 04, 2019 @03:03PM (#19828503)
> ...I’d imagine that wildfires aren’t exactly helpful either.

Without knowing what specific ecosystem you’re talking about, sometimes the seemingly destructive fire is beneficial[0] to an ecosystem.

[0] https://www.fire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/fact_sheets...

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Re:California Dispatches Goats to Eat Brush, Prevent Wildfires by cbHXBY1D on Saturday May 04, 2019 @04:07PM (#19828980)
EBMUD uses goats in the Oakland Hills every summer/fall.

It's pretty common to see goats right before entering the Caldecott (heading east).

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Re:California Dispatches Goats to Eat Brush, Prevent Wildfires by halbritt on Saturday May 04, 2019 @04:35PM (#19829204)
The city does as well. Just a few months back, they had some around Leona Heights Park, which is a fairly large piece of land owned by the city.

I wish they'd bring 'em back and take care of the Scotch broom.

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