There’s no need to use big crews and machinery to control fires in the California hills — just add goats. A park district in the Bay Area is using goats to munch away the brush and low-level vegetation that fuel fires in parklands. Not only are the goats sometimes cheaper, gentler, and more environmentally sensible than employing human crews for the job, but they’re also more versatile in steep forests where heavy equipment and cattle can’t be used. “It’s what God created them to do,” said Terri Holleman, owner of the Goats-R-Us ranch, which supplies goats for the hillside-cleanup jobs. Even goats have critics, however; they complain that the animal aren’t picky enough, eating native vegetation as well as introduced species.
