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GOATS In Benicia?
March 8th, 2009 categories: Benicia, Local Stuff
It might not be quite as romantic as the fabled swallows annual return to San Juan Capistrano, but you know it’s Spring when the goats return to the hills of Benicia.
Goats, you say?
Yep. And not something you’d normally expect to see roaming the hills right in the middle of a large suburban housing development.
Yet earlier today, as I drove up Panorama Dr., there they were, dozens of them, feasting on the green grasses and weeds that have turned Benicia’s hills their annual Springtime emerald green.
That’s because, for the second year in a row, the City of Benicia has hired a herd of goats to “mow” the hills of Southampton.
The grazing program started last year as the city’s eco-friendly alternative to sending tractors into the open space, which it used to do every spring to cut fire breaks throughout the hills of Southampton before the fire season arrived.
Last year, for what seemed like a month or two, the goats were a frequent site throughout Southampton. Hardly a day went by where you didn’t see a hillside full of these hungry herbivores. For a month or so, it made it feel almost as if living in Southampton was like living on a farm.
The goats are hired by the city from an Orinda-based company called, of all things, Goats R Us.
According to the Goats R Us website, the average grazing fee is about $700 per acre, which “includes transportation, shepherd’s salary, supplements and healthcare for the goats, fencing, and insurance.” Considering how many acres of open space there are in Southampton, I imagine the City of Benicia negotiated some sort of volume discount.
So if you happen to be driving around Benicia one day soon and see what you swore looked like a herd of goats, don’t head straight to the optometrist thinking you need a new pair of glasses. It’s just one of Benicia’s newest annual rites of Spring.
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My two concerns about this practice are (1) whether-or-not there are endemic plants that are in anyway threatened by the feeding habits of goats, which are quite voracious feeders, as well as endemic fauna which could depend on endemic plantlife, and (2)that the voracious feeding habits of goats tend to lead them to over-graze, unless most carefully managed (hence the need for a shepherd, I know, both to protect the goats and to protect the leand), which in this neighborhood could easily lead to erosion problems as a consequence of loss of soil-holding vegetation. These hills could be expected to have bunch grass, if it were restored, and coyote bush, if the goats were not to eat it, as I think that they do, given the opportunity, both of which are erosion control plants as examples of a host of such plants.
$700 and acre? Does it really cost that much to mow? Sounds like an opportunity for somebody, and I really wonder why one pays a goat herd owner to mow, when most herd animal owners pay to secure grazing rights.