Goats At Hawk Mountain Sanctuary (1 Viewer)

Those planning to visit Hawk Mountain Sanctuary during the Fall Migration this year may be interested to find out that Goats are being used there in a controlled experiment to test their ability to control the spread of an invasion of Asian aka Japanese Stiltgrass in the Sanctuary.

It was written about in my local newspaper today but it did not see fit to put it in their on-line edition.

http://www.hawkmountain.org/who-we-are/news/goats-in-the-woods/page.aspx?id=5032

Bob

Bob, goats can be a useful tool on invasives, especially if it is proven that they do not pass the seeds through them. They seem to like the 'woodier' weeds that sheep and cattle won't eat. Out here they are used to control "blackberry".

I'm a bit of a reformed weedist and now avoid spraying wherever possible. Weeds are not a problem, they are just colonisers (somewhat like the English!), and if an ecosystem is getting 'weed invasions' then it is a sign of an imbalance or lack somewhere. It should be remembered that ecosystems are rarely static and unchanging as humans are want to think of them. Instead they are self perpetuating and self balancing systems. This could be in the cycle of vegetative maturation processes, natural disturbance drivers, and /or interaction with fauna, and it's own balances as in things such as predator - prey relationships.

So something somewhere is out of whack in the bigger picture - it's surprising how many times that turns out to be disturbed hydrology and nutrient flow, and grazing impacts (or lack of) from megafauna and natural prey movements and any imbalances that causes with smaller 'increaser' species which may then further unbalance and degrade the ecosystem in a vicious feedback circle.


Chosun :gh: