BRAINERD — Eating all day and loving it, the goats are back at Rotary Riverside Park in Brainerd this summer to help mitigate invasive buckthorn.
Melissa Barrick, district manager for the Crow Wing Soil and Water Conservation District, said the project is part of the Lessard Sams Outdoor Heritage Grant Restoration project with Great River Greening and the City of Brainerd.
“The park has a lot of invasive species that kind of take over spaces. One of them is called buckthorn,” Barrick said. “Buckthorn usually can be seen really well in the fall because it doesn't lose its leaves until later. Basically, it kind of grows in dense mats and takes over and the goats are here today to help manage that.”
Joe Eitenmiller, co-owner of Brainerd Lakes Goats, said there are about 60 goats in Rotary Riverside Park and they should be there until about mid-October.
“The plan for this site is they'll eat down these 9 acres,” Eitenmiller said. “I will then go in and cut and treat some of that buckthorn because while the goats do a really good job at reducing it, they don't always kill it. So we'll come in here with brush saws, cut it and treat it.
"And during that time frame, they'll bounce over to another site to reduce buckthorn that we've already cut and treated. Buckthorn has a germination period where it can grow up to two years after that seed hits the ground.”
Eitenmiller said one of the great things about goats is that they have four stomach compartments, and as they eat that buckthorn, including the buckthorn seeds, they digest the seed, making it no longer viable. On the other hand, a bird, which eats buckthorn seeds, flies away and distributes them elsewhere.
“Goats are one of the few animals that enjoy and thrive on eating buckthorn,” Eitenmiller said. “They're a browser, so they prefer leaves over grass, and so they do a really good job at reducing the invasive species and not underbrush.”
He said he uses both meat and dairy goats to get the job done. The dairy goats can reach higher than the meat goats, which like to keep all four hooves on the ground. But the meat goats eat a lot more than the dairy goats, so he brings a mix of both to clear out the buckthorn.
“They're actually happier being out here in the woods where they can roam and eat buckthorn than when they're in a pasture with grass or in a barn. They really are,” Eitenmiller said.
One area that the goats were at is now a lush, green field.
