An army of goats was deployed to the hillsides of Glendale on Wednesday to feast on overgrown grass & brush, hopefully staving off what could be a brutal fire season coming up next fall.
Four hundred goats will tackle the 20-acre Verdugo Park/Glendale Fire Deputy Chief Todd Tucker said the animals play a key role in brush fire mitigation.
“They're going to be here for about one week, and they clear about two to three acres a day,” he told KNX News’ Pete Demetriou. “They're here 24 hours a day. They bed down at night in a pen. There's a shepherd here 24/7. There's a sheepdog.”
Michael Clain with the California Grazing Company said the goats adapt to the landscape better than human crews or machines.
“A place like this, where it's steep terrain, where it would be hard to access, mechanically clearing would be very labor intensive and hard and if not impossible,” he said. “So the goats, they're great at climbing, and they're great at getting the flashy receptive fuel bed.”
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The goats cost about $15,000, but Demetriou reported that using people or machines would cost twice as much.
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