"The Goats" Nose Hill Environmental Park September 8, 2024

As I mentioned in my blog post dated September 3rd, the Goats are back at Nose Hill!  In recognition of that, I followed a tutorial on how to do a watercolour painting of a goat.  This is the outcome of what I learned!  I attempted a painting of a full body but gave up and decided to just learn how to do the head and neck.  

I ventured up to Nose Hill this morning to see the goats working but I was too early and they were still in the pen.  With the electric fence in place, I was not able to get close to the camp.  I was early enough that I did see the Shepard out doing a yoga routine.  I almost felt like I was a spy or an intruder so went on my way.  So you know what I am talking about, I copied this article from a local news story to share in case you are interested in learning more:

Canada Thistle, Sow Thistle, and Knotting Thistle are among the invasive species that threaten the largest intact rough fescue grasslands in North America. Ensuring that those native species remain as part of the ecological landscape at Nose Hill Park is the City of Calgary’s targeted grazing program. This year, 800 goats from BAAH’D Plant Management and Reclamation will be grazing on the eastern slopes of Nose Hill along 14 Street NW, chomping on those invasive species while also helping to restore the land for native grasses and flowers that would have grown there during the days of the buffalo.

“Without any sort of natural disturbance, like grazing or burns—which the [vegetation on the] hill would have naturally evolved with—we would see that the woody invasives would end up taking over, and we’d see a shrub land and a forest here. We would lose our grassland,” said Andrew Phelps, an ecologist with the City of Calgary. “The reason we have selected this area, which is the Rubbing Stone Management Area, is because there is a high concentration or abundance of our native grasses here, and rough fescue is primarily the one that we’re interested in. It has been dwindling across the Great Plains and Alberta as a whole.

The city has been using goats as an all-natural plant management solution since 2016. “I think the beauty about them is that they’re not just here for biomass removal. There’s many other value-added services that they provide. They provide aeration and soil tillage, which helps our native species establish, and that’s when the goats walk across the landscape they till up that soil,” said Phelps. “They also provide fertilization, which helps cycle that vegetation back into the landscape.” He said that the goats also engage the public in the work of ecological conservation at Nose Hill, which then increases the public’s ecological literacy.

Jeanette Hall, a shepherd and owner of BAAH’D Plant Management and Reclamation, said that each of the 800 goats can eat around eight pounds of biomass per day, and that the goats have been trained over 30 years to be particularly interested in invasive species.

“All herbivores learn to eat from their parents. So, because this herd has been doing it for 30 years, they’re trained on certain weeds. They’ve been exposed to lots of weeds. So we know we can guarantee to our clients when we show up, we are going to eat the weeds,” she said.

Beyond that, she said, there is a ton of science that goes into using goats for land management “There’s a ton of thinking and planning that goes into what we’re actually doing because we are just mimicking how Bison would have worked on these sites. We’re doing what you’ve got to imagine millions of pounds and feet of bison doing tromping over this hill. They graze it right down, but they leave. That’s the important thing, is that they leave. So more animals the better. Shorter the better,” Hall said. 

The goat herd will spend two weeks on Nose Hill, and during their stay, they will be living in goat pens at night right on the hill itself.  Hall said that to manage that many animals, and to protect the other animals that live on Nose Hill—including predators like coyotes, hawks, and crows—there will be dedicated guard dogs surrounding the herd. Those dogs will serve as a deterrent to predators, and as Hall likes to point out, she has never lost a goat to a predator despite working in environments with other ones like bears, wolves, and cougars.

In turn though, the City of Calgary and Hall are asking the public to stay away from both the herd and the working dogs during their stay at Nose Hill. “We have trained livestock Guardian dogs that can be at large. So, they are trained to bark and scare and alert us if there is someone who they perceive as a hazard. If people are screaming at our dogs, or yelling at them, they’re only going to make those dogs bark more.”

Signs are posted at the entrance to the Environmental Park.

I zoomed in quite a bit to capture this photo. It's the camp where the Shepard stays at night with the pen full of goats just outside the trailer.  I could see the doors to the trailer were open but the Shepard had not yet come out. 

Zoomed in even further.  It was just after this when I saw the Shepard come out and head to the side to do yoga.  The goats were milling about in the pen. I could not see the dogs but I did hear them barking and I wondered were they barking out a warning for me to move on.  

while moving on, I followed along side the electrified fence

it covers a very, very, very large area with many warnings and lots of trail closures

The following three collages show photos I took when the goats were here in previous years. When the goats were here on Nose Hill in October of 2022, I was invited by the Shepard to mix in with the goats.  I enjoyed that opportunity!  During the goats' stay at Confluence Park in 2016 (their first work term in Calgary), in addition to being herded by dogs they were also herded by horses.  The day I stopped by that Park to see them, we were permitted to stand by the fence and watch while they worked.  

The City is creating trading cards of the goats!

After hiking around for 12 kilometres up on Nose Hill this morning, I did not feel like going back to where the fenced off area was with the camp, goats, Shepard and dogs.  I may or may not make another trip up The Hill while the goats are still there.  Their work contract lasts until September 19th.