- Title: 'They're baaaaack' - Dozens of goats eat their way through Riverside Park
- Date: 14th July 2021
- Summary: VARIOUS OF BAND PLAYING, CROWD DANCING SIGN READING (English): "WELCOME TO GOATHAM 2021 / THEY'RE BAAAAAACK... / JULY 14TH THROUGH SUMMER'S END" / BAND PLAYING INSIDE RIVERSIDE PARK
- Embargoed: 28th July 2021 21:45
- Keywords: Riverside Park goats overgrown weeds pesticides
- Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- City: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Human Interest/Brights/Odd News,Society/Social Issues,United States
- Reuters ID: LVA002ELTBD5L
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Two dozen goats from Green Goats farm in Rhinebeck, New York journeyed to Riverside Park in Manhattan to munch on invasive weeds on Wednesday (July 14).
"As part of our Woodland Restoration Initiative two years ago, we unleashed a very hungry group of goats into a stretch of the park that had been overrun with invasive plants," said Dan Garodnick, Riverside Park Conservancy president and CEO. "They chowed down on Japanese knotweed, they noshed on porcelain berry, they snacked on multiflora rose, they easily traversed the hard to reach terrain behind me and gulped down poison ivy without even giving it a second thought. Since goats are naturally effective weed whackers, putting them to work in Goatham is like treating them to an all-you-can-eat buffet. It's healthy for the goats and it's good for the environment. That's farm to table."
It's an environmentally friendly win-win for invasive species removal at Riverside Park - the goats get to feast on overgrown brush and Riverside Park Conservancy doesn't have to dump harsh chemicals on weeds and poison ivy.
Goats are an ingenious approach to weed removal, harnessing the goat's natural hunger for leafy greens as the primary mechanism behind the task, which traditionally involves pollutant chemicals. They even eat species dangerous to humans, like poison ivy.
Of the 24 goats, five will call Riverside Park its home through the end of August, eating their way through two acres of the park. And of those five goats, Buckles, Chalupa, Mallemar, Ms. Bo Peep and Skittles, the public can vote in a ranked-choice voting system to determine which goat will be crowned the Greatest Of All Time. The winner will be announced by the end of the summer.
(Production: Roselle Chen, Hussein Al Waaile) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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