Grazing goats help reduce fire risk in Pebble Beach
UPDATE 6/12/2017 5:20 p.m.:
Highly effective, low maintenance fire prevention efforts are underway in the Monterey Peninsula, with the return of hundreds of goats.
On Monday, 320 goats, owned by Orinda-based Goats R Us, were delivered to Pebble Beach. The goats will eat away at the dense vegetation that grew over the wet, rainy winter.
“This year, there’s a ton more vegetation,” said Zephyr Oyarzun with Goats R Us. “This particular location, it’s probably twice as thick, I think, as last year. The goats are moving a lot slower to move through the projects.”
Goats are used over sheep because they will eat virtually anything. That includes the toxic poison oak, Italian thistle, genista and poison hemlock. While some of those plants may be hazardous to humans, they are not for goats. The hemlock creates an intoxicating effect in them.
“The poison oak will dehydrate the goats a little bit more so we have to have a good water source supply available for them and the mixture of the vegetation that they’re eating will offset some of the poisons and toxins that they are consuming,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Mark Mancini.
Residents stopped by to see the four-legged fire prevention specialists.
“It’s the best way of getting rid of these invasive plants,” Katie Spitz said. I think it’s fantastic and it reduces our chance of fire.”
These low tech lawn mowers are more environmentally friendly that the alternative – bringing in heavy equipment that can create dust and noise.
“The heavy equipment, they’ll just do a mastication and we want to have a lighter hand on the land for the conservancy properties,” Mancini said.
The goats will be in the area for six to eight weeks.
Because they can draw in quite an audience, officials want to remind folks not to feed them any outside food or touch them, since they are likely covered in poison oak.
ORIGINAL POST:
Low tech fire prevention efforts are underway in the Monterey Peninsula, with the return of hundreds of goats. 320 goats, owned by Orinda-based Goats R Us, were delivered to Pebble Beach this morning. The goats will eat away at the dense vegetation that grew over the wet, rainy winter.
“This year, there’s a ton more vegetation,” said Zephyr Oyarzun with Goats R Us. “This particular location, it’s probably twice as thick, I think, as last year. The goats are moving a lot slower to move through the projects.”
Goats are used over sheep because they will eat virtually anything. That includes the toxic poison oak, Italian thistle, genista and poison hemlock. While some of those plants may be hazardous to humans, they are not for goats. The hemlock creates an intoxicating effect in them.
The goats will be in the area for six to eight weeks.
KION’s Mariana Hicks will have the story.
