Reducing Herbicide Use
In June 2015, City Council approved a motion to ban herbicides with some exemptions on City-owned land. The aim of the ban is to eliminate non-essential uses of herbicides on City-owned land while recognizing there are circumstances where herbicide use is required. Herbicide is now only used on a very small percentage of public parkland. In many areas, the City uses a combination of mowing, trimming, hand pulling and biological controls to manage weeds.
Why Goats?
Goats are the best animals for the job because they are all-terrain browsers. Because of the uneven and often elevated terrain in Rundle Park, it is uniquely suited for us to test the effectiveness of using goats as targeted browsers when other means are unavailable. We contracted Baah’d Plant Management and Reclamation, including their herd of approximately 400 goats, to target and remove invasive species in Rundle Park during the pilot.
