Stampede: Goats Flood Berkeley Hillside In Incredible Video [Video]
Berkeley Labs enjoys an unusual summer ritual: herding goats. The flood of goats stopped traffic for a while on Friday, but the animals serve a good cause.
According to NBC Bay Area, the animals are the Berkeley Labs fire prevention team. They eat the tall, dead grass, which is a potential tinderbox, especially considering California’s severe drought.
The labs posted the video, taken by David Stein, on their Facebook with a description.
“Goats gone wild! We utilize goats at the lab in order to keep our grasses short and reduce fire hazards. In this video the goats are being herded to the tree laden hill just below our Blackberry Gate.”
As CBS News pointed out, goats are environmentally friendly and cheap. For steep hillsides where most lawnmowers cannot be used effectively, the animals are particularly helpful. Berkeley Labs is hardly the first organization to turn to goats as a cheap lawn-mowing alternative.
As previously reported by the Inquisitr, the common farm animals have been used to keep down weeds and other brush in abandoned areas of the city of Detroit. One urban goat farm, called Idyll Farms Detroit, was carrying out the service in Brightmoor neighborhood until city officials evicted the landscaping animals because their presence violated city ordinances.
Berkeley Labs, on the other hand, seems perfectly at peace with using goats on its dry hillside. The labs hire official goat herders every year for this stampede through the lightly-wooded area. If you look closely enough, you might be able to see a couple of the herders, including a dog.
Goats may make great landscapers, but it’s their cuteness has been making the animals popular lately.
Last week, a video of two baby goats in pajamas hit the internet, quickly going viral. It shows the two babies frolicking through a barn, finding any platform to jump off of and then run around. Why they’re wearing pajamas isn’t all that clear.
Aside from herding goats, Berkeley labs, part of the University of Berkeley, carries out unclassified research for the federal government.
[Image Credit: Getty Images]
