A major brushfire in the Oakland Hills last October was a scarcely needed reminder of the perennial fire risk in the East Bay Hills. At Berkeley Lab, that risk is addressed, in part, with goats. Every summer, when the grass is dry, a herd of 300 or so is brought in from Goats R Us in Orinda to munch away at the undergrowth on the steep hills of the 200-acre federal property. It’s a low-tech method to protect one of the highest tech facilities in the world.
Why not use machinery instead? Berkeley Lab Fire Marshal Mike Torkelson explains that goats are more efficient. For starters, he says, “they take the vegetation and turn it into fertilizer, which they leave here for us. Next year’s grass grows back just fine, and they’re relatively low impact. Putting machinery on the hillside can do considerable damage.”
Goats also have the benefit of not throwing sparks and risking combustion. And their efficiency is hard to overstate: Domestic goats (Capra hircus) are voracious foragers, eating everything from grasses to poison oak to blackberry brambles. They even climb trees and chomp away at the leaves.
The downsides, to the extent there are any, are manageable. Cyclotron Road may be temporarily blocked as the herd is moved. And, occasionally, Torkelson says, a goat “will get stuck in a tree” or “gets outside the fence,” but in the end, they’re both effective and extremely popular—morale boosters on hooves.
