Sustainability Spotlight: Goats at Rock Creek Park Golf
40 goats from RVA Goats get acquainted with their new work site as visitors to the golf course look on in the distance.
One of the biggest challenges in managing the environmental programs for DC’s three public golf courses is figuring out how to mitigate the over 25 acres of invasive vegetation blanketing the edge habitats at Rock Creek Park Golf in northwest Washington, DC. As I’ve learned in working with our agronomy team and the National Park Service, an Integrated Pest Management system is a key resource that helps identify and prioritize problems while offering ideas and solutions to overcome challenges.
Most Integrated Pest Management programs employ several different options to suppress and kill off invasive vegetation on golf courses - chemicals, mechanical equipment, and volunteer man-power are the most popular options that we use regularly. However, there is one IPM method that truly provides the greatest ecological benefit to an area overrun with invasive vegetation that I or Rock Creek Park NPS staff hadn’t used to date - goats. Yes, goats. I promise, I’m not kidding you (sorry, I needed at least one pun).
Goats have evolved over millions of years to become nature’s garbage disposals. Not only will goats eat practically any type of vegetation (some vegetative species like the invasive beefsteak or native black cherry tree can cause illness if too much is eaten) but their digestive system, unlike birds and other animals, prevents the regrowth of consumed seeds and their droppings add nutrients and fertilizer to rejuvenate soil in invasive-predominate areas. They are also pretty darn cute and some of them demand attention in the form of snuggles and pets and will not take ‘No’ for an answer.
Here I am petting sweet Nori (center) who is starved for attention and getting to know Billy the Goat, who is RVA Goat’s first and oldest member of the herd. This job was Billy’s last as he will now retire from the traveling squad to live out his days on a farm near Richmond, VA.
This past September, I learned firsthand how impactful and fun goats can be on a golf course when I hired a herd of 40 goats from RVA Goats in Richmond, VA to eat an acre of vegetation at Rock Creek Park Golf course, located in northwest Washington, DC. I can honestly tell you, the goats were worth every penny that was spent on hiring them. They worked 24 hours a day, they didn’t complain about the work (only when they didn’t get enough pets), people loved seeing them in action, and they did a really awesome job as the pictures at the end of the blog will show you.
So if you are thinking about goats for your next invasive removal project, let me share some helpful tips and lessons learned to guide you on your own goatscaping journey.
Determine Project Goals - What do you want the space to look like after the goats have finished and you’ve killed off all the invasive species? How will you engage the public around this project and can you use it as a tool to build goodwill and generate positive PR within the environmental community? These are just several of the key questions to ask yourself before initiating the project. Remember that environmental context is key and each golf course manager will have to approach their project goals differently. The last thing you want to do is hire the goats, not have a plan to complete the job, the vegetation grows back, and you are back at square one.
Conduct a Site Audit and Vegetative Survey - The first step in determining if goats are right for your project is to do an audit of your golf course to identify a few areas goats might be the right IPM solution. Look for places that might be sectioned off or where the overwhelming percentage of vegetative species present is invasive and non-native. Remember, they eat everything that is green.
When I began the process of hiring the goats over two years ago, I had the perfect space in mind for the project: a one-acre plot on a hillside adjacent to the 12th hole that was outlined by maintenance paths. The area was blanketed with Porcelainberry vine making it impossible to access for humans and machines couldn’t work because there was no way of knowing what hazards lie underneath. Add to that a 5 foot protective barrier of multiflora rose thorns and you have what I would learn is the perfect space for goats.
For my vegetative survey, I enlisted the expertise of Rock Creek Park’s own botanist, Ana Chuquin, and Rock Creek Park Weed Warrior Leader, Brian Wright, to perform a vegetative survey that would assess the quality of the vegetation and the percentage of invasive species present. We determined that over 85% of the selected acre was invasive species, far surpassing the threshold (roughly 50-60% invasive) for employing other IPM methods due to the presence of native species. The chart below shows the identified species from the vegetative survey.
This are the identified species from the project vegetative survey.
This is a map of the full ~1.93 acres of vegetation eaten by the goats. This area lies just west of the now 12th and future 7th hole at Rock Creek Park Golf.
Find a vendor - I was only able to find 3 goat vendors that service the Washington, DC area and after striking out with the first two, RVA Goats came to my rescue. RVA Goats has a herd of over 140 goats and sheep they rent out specifically for jobs like mine. After conducting a site visit with RVA Goats, it was determined that we were a great fit for their herd and we agreed on a contract to hire 40 of their goats.
Determine and understand the project’s parameters -
Project Duration - depending on the severity of your invasive vegetation and the number of goats you hire, you can expect a herd of roughly 30-40 goats to eat an acre of vegetation in about 7-10 days. The vendor will make a recommendation on the number of goats needed upon completion of the initial site visit.
Project Costs - our original estimate was $10,000 for 40 goats to eat the one acre with a majority of the total cost dedicated to transport costs and employee overhead. If your selected vendor is close and your golf course is relatively inaccessible to the general public you can expect your costs to be less. Due to Rock Creek Park Golf’s urban location and no protective barrier, we needed to have full-time security measures in place to keep every being safe and free from harassment.
We extended the goats for an additional week and they ate almost another acre of vegetation for a total of 1.93 acres. The added time brought our total bill to $14,600 for almost 3 weeks of work.
Time of Year - goats are best used when the vegetation you are wanting to remove is in full growing season. For Washington, DC, that time frame is from June to September but each location around the country will differ based on seasons and weather patterns.
Safety and Security - RVA goats used a solar-powered electric fence and two Great Pyrennnees dogs to guard their goats. As a safety precaution for golfers and visitors alike, we used acknowledgement of risk signage and orange construction fencing was installed as a border in areas where we expected people to interact with the goats. Additionally, I required all visitors to check in at the golf shop to complete an ‘Acknowledgement of Risk’ waiver before visiting the herd and provided them with a map and FAQ sheet teaching people about the goats. Lastly, RVA Goats provided shepherds that visited the herd 3 times per day to check fence integrity and the general well-being of the animals (refilling water, providing nutritional supplements, and of course scratches and pets!). Other security things to account for include wildlife like coyotes, snakes, hornets, and other predators that could harm the herd.
Have a post-project plan in place - The first thing to understand about goats is they will only eat what’s green, which leaves stems and vines behind for follow-up work. Additionally, you should expect a goat-treated area to begin regrowth within one or two weeks of project completion, if not sooner. However, the absence of leaves makes a huge difference in the area. Here is an overview of our follow-up plan going into 2025 and beyond.
Additional Observations and Lessons Learned:
It’s cheaper to hire the goats for a longer period of time. As mentioned above, our original estimate for one acre was $10k. After adding on an additional acre, our total bill was only $14,600. The bulk of our costs were related to transportation from Richmond to DC and the security measures we needed to put in place.
The general public was absolutely enamored with the goats. I estimate we had over 75 people come specifically to the golf course just to see the goats and a vast majority of them had never been to Rock Creek Park Golf before. Next time will implement better tracking methods to get a better sense of interactions.
We got a lot of great press out of this project because people love goats. Here are links to two separate local news stories about the project.
This project represented the first time goats had been used as an IPM method in Rock Creek Park. Many National Park Service staff, including Ana Chuquin, were excited to see a new IPM method being employed in the park. For reference, Rock Creek Park is DC’s only national park and encompasses over 17,000 acres of forest in DC and Montgomery County, Maryland. So from the perspective of Rock Creek Park NPS staff, this project adds immense academic and research-based value to their overall mission to preserve the natural and cultural resources of protected lands.
Here is a gallery of images from the project including: visitor signage, before and after photos, and of course, action shots of the goats.
