Goats became an unconventional weapon against wildfires | Hacker News Reader

Goats became an unconventional weapon against wildfires

nytimes.com

91 pointslxm75 comments

This has been common in the SF Bay Area for 15 years now. They are adorable and fun to spend time around– it feels like living in the old country.

Yeah, I enjoy seeing the herd move to different spots in the East Bay, I usually stop on a ride (cycling) to observe. Always a good time

It’s pretty common all around CA. Not really sure what’s so groundbreaking.

More like 25 years. I remember hiking in Briones in the 90s and they regularly had a herd of brush clearing goats penned in with electric fence.

Goats also make great yoga partners.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/12/health/goat-yoga-oregon-trnd/...

I'm skeptical. Will the goats really remove the fire risk for 100 acres after a day of grazing? Can it scale?

The pictures show goats eating grass, not forested underbrush including small trees, bushes, and dead branches which provide fuel for these fires.

It cannot scale, but it is a useful tool for specific locations and problems.

What does scale is using fire to fight fire -- prescribed burns, and allowing natural fires to burn while monitoring them for safety. In parallel, lots can be done to harden home in the Wilderness-Urban-Interface.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-18/how-pres...

The problem with prescribed burns is that in winter and spring it is often too wet to burn, then when the hot winds come it is too risky to burn.

People don't realise just how quickly the wet landscape can dry out when the hot winds come.

I learnt this the hard way on my property.

We tried goats at our ski hill and to be honest they don't come close to people power.

We used to see them on the trails in Aliso Canyon down in laguna beach.

I have seen them at Hayward shoreline (Bay area). They are efficient at clearing long patches of grass without much supervision. They were bounded each day by a re-installable fence. New location on each day covering approx. 50-60 sq yds. The fence even-though was weak seemed to deter the goats from wandering away. The only drawback i could see is they eat away everything they like which could mean eating rare or endangered flora.

Uber for goats? Anyone want to get in on this?

Can we call it Chewber? (because they eat grass). AirBleatNCleat? HerdWallet? Instagoat? GoatHub? how about Eweber? (okay, that's kind of a stretch)

Uber Bleats

Uber Baaa.

Eweber.

Ha. Ubaaaa.

Caper

What value is the middle man going to add when the person with the trailer and goats has all the business they want?

https://www.rentagoat.com Not kidding.

I've seen something like this used in Vic, Australia. Apparently goats love Blackberries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yiclBCxMo&t=577s

They love blackberries, but they don't kill them and they spread the seeds all over, nicely fertilised.

Then when you get rid of the goats you have a total blackberry infestation.

According to this video, they've had some success! I'd be interested in eating those blackberry flavoured goats. hahaha.

Another problem with goats is that they soon learn to strip the bark and kill all your trees.

I found out the hard way.

Goats are amazing animals! :D

This is a reason why there is a game about goats: https://www.goat-simulator.com/

This guy will be all over this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1WoOqYOBcE

Can sheep and rams also be unconventional weapons?

Sheep prefer grasses, goats will eats all kinds of shubs/brush and do a much better job of removing thick fire fuels to a higher heigh as they will also climb. Sheep tend to eat at ground level.

I'm in an Arctic Fox camper right now.

It’s all fine and dandy until something becomes an invasive species.

Goats are manageable as invasive species, i Hope

Unrelated to the article, but NYT is forcing me to login before reading the article. I guess the days of opening a private window to circumvent the three articles per month limit are over.

just disable js

Just avoid the article entirely, and take a quick look at the comments here instead.

The "Bypass paywalls" plugin and Ublock origin, works fine for now.

Browser reader view is another option.

Since when is clearing flammable grasses and underbrush to prevent wildfires "unconventional"?

From the article:

   is among a few individuals using grazing methods for fire mitigation

I am not sure if you are being obtuse or not, but the "unconventional" part is referring to the practice of using goats.

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Weapons of grass destruction.

As the saying goes, sometimes you have to fight fire with goats.

So, taking in mind that goats (and deer) are everywhere, why we still have wildfires?

They do really think that ants and other insects process less flammable material than goats do?

Are goats everywhere? The handful of places I've lived (Central Florida and SF bay area) I've never seen a "wild" goat. Deer, sure. But deer seem to be much pickier than goats when it comes to their diets

I've had deer eat potato and tomato plants, and marigolds. They don't see particularly picky. They don't eat lavender...

I've seen goats eat trash so...

lol. okay. I stand corrected.

Goats and Deer are picky eaters, if they've got a buffet they eat what they like and avoid what they don't like.

Goats eating trash is usually a mix of curiosity/exploring with their mouth, the glues are often tasty, and some people are jerks and don't feed their goats/hungry goats will find calories.

Goats are used in Seattle to clear away invasive blackberry, which are quite annoying to get rid of.

https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Rent-a-goats-gain-fo...

Yeah, that works cause goats like blackberry (the whole plant). I didn't think they liked scotch broom (mine won't eat it), but the rent a goat services carefully size the fencing so the goats don't have so much available that they can be really picky.

Deer aren't everywhere. I live in a city where I see deer literally every single day. Multiple times a day. I've never seen one in the forest here. Not once. Cougars come into town regularly because that's where the food is.

Maybe they visit the forest at night?...

Deer are not everywhere. They would probably need to exist in higher ratios, even where they do frequent.

Deer in the Seattle area only eat landscaping and garden plants. They leave the native plants and the invasive weeds alone.

Fortunately, my yard is mostly invasive weeds, so I don't have problems with the deer.

The goats get used in Seattle for blackberry. https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Rent-a-goats-gain-fo...

> They arrive early and open the trailer. The goats jump out, ready to eat, as Ms. Malmberg watches that they don’t stray. The team sets up an electric fence to confine the goats and their meals to a specific area overnight.

Doing the same thing with deers would be much harder. Keeping deer confined in a specific area in order to concentrate the grazing requires much better fences, and when they inadvertently escape it takes much more work to bring them back.

My biggest questions with this setup is how they keep the cost down from setting up an electric fence in order to create a good fire wall. Electric fences are generally very labor intensive, and we seems to be talking about steep slopes in some cases.

Could it be done with just a shock collar and a geo-fence?

Shock collars are expensive when you need 50+ of them, plus keeping them all charged etc. the current method of portable net-type fencing is very efficient.

That seems unnecessarily cruel to draw an invisible line that’s always changing and shock them for violating the line. The reason this is ok for dogs is because they’re in a fixed location and can learn the boundaries. The goats on the other hand are always being moved to new areas.

> My biggest questions with this setup is how they keep the cost down from setting up an electric fence in order to create a good fire wall

They don’t. Friend of mine owns some land north of SF and was quoted $5000 to have goats come eat the grass.

I suspect his land is too small to be worth the hassle for the goat service provider so he was quoted the go away price.

That price could be perfectly reasonable depending on the lot size and vegetation density. To have dozers or mechanical fuel removal out there could easily been more money and if you can’t get fire insurance but live in the wild land urban interface, several grand a year in fuel removal is going to be par for the course.

Yeah totally. It was ridiculously not worth it for him, but I understand why the business would rather work with clients at that price level than deal with someone who can do it by hand in a few hours and just happens to be lazy.

There are more mobile systems that are easier to set up quickly. I don't know how they'd fare against a herd of cattle, but they seem to contain the goats around here just fine.

The electric fences are obviously temporary so not nearly as labor intensive as a permanent electric setup. A single person can run a good length of fencing by themselves if the fence line path is semi cleared. It’s like staking in a 2.5’ tall volleyball net. The goats know it’s electric so avoid contact; it is less stable than you’d think.

> Keeping deer confined in a specific area in order to concentrate the grazing requires much better fences

I'm sorry, but this just wrong. Goats are the most difficult animals to keep fenced in... they climb just about anything (the fence itself or something else that will help them get over it) and they are much stronger than deer or most other similar-sized animals, and thus also much more likely to break a fence. And they are smarter, too, and will figure out some way to out. There's an old saying: the fence that will hold goats holds water.

You may want to reevaluate this. Deer easily jump 5’ fences, goats can be contained with a sturdy 3.5’ fence. I own 4 goats that are contained on 2 acres… regularly see deer coming and going as they please, jumping over a fence the goats can’t get through.and a large buck deer is way stronger and taller than the biggest buck goat.

I've seen deer jump six foot fences.

Where I live garden fences need to be 10’ high for deer

IDK of any wild goats in the Bay Area. Know of one goat ranch in Napa county.

IMO goats should be released in masses to the foothills everywhere. 98% of what has/is burning isn’t urban or agricultural.

Vineyards can spend more on fencing or fire insurance…

> IMO goats should be released in masses to the foothills everywhere.

I’ve seen what happens when you let goats run free to in the hills. The technical term is called desertification.

If you've seen one of these setups (the SF Bay Area has been doing this a while, so I see it a fair amount), you know that it takes a lot of goats to clear a hillside. Like in the 50 range. There are not enough deer to get the job done.

I was told by someone that it takes about 200 goats/acre/day

So guessing that’s why her herd is that size.

The goats are 'free' but require expensive fencing and supervision. Otherwise they'll just wander off and eat the tastier food crops or household plants.

Goat meat and milk processing is not as automated as it is for cattle, chicken, pigs.

Free-range goats with a GPS-based pain collar could be a solution.

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