Need to Eradicate Invasive Plants? Get a Goat.

I’m loving a blog piece I read today about 400 goats who were let loose on a Wilsonville, Oregon, park overgrown with invasive ivy and blackberries.

So does it work?

Absolutely, says Oregonlive.com blogger Kimberly Nelson.

The part of the park that the goats have devoured is devoid of the ivy understory that once choked out the delicate trillium and ferns before winding up the beautiful oaks.

This is one of the best non-chemical initiatives I’ve heard about.

I immediately wondered if goats would eat up that pesky Southern invader: kudzu. Sure enough, the DeSoto Times Online has a story about goats eating up the thick vegetation, which I’ve seen bury old mill towns beyond recognition.

In Mississippi, the goat experiment is part of a collaborative Kudzu Control Demonstration Project. And for the first time…without herbicides, burning, and dynamite (really, kudzu is that bad), the war on kudzu is gaining an edible edge.

As a side note to the DeSoto story, I was thrilled to learn about the goat herder: a llama.

OK. I’m back to researching llamas and alpacas.