Washington, D.C.’s, Historic Congressional Cemetery has some new visitors.
The cemetery management has hired around six dozen goats – or about two herds – for $750 a day to rid the area of invasive plants like poison ivy.
Lauren Maloy, program director at the cemetery said, “They really are voracious eaters… they will eat anything in sight, so given a week, hopefully they will clear the whole area.”
Brian Knox, who runs Eco-Goats, is the supplier. He says that using goats is an environmentally friendly vegetation control.
Knox said he got into the business because one of his friends had a bunch of goats he wanted to get rid of. After they had tested the goats on a few properties of land, they realized how good the goats were at eliminating weeds and fast-growing plants.
Knox said, “It’s old, old technology,” and he can’t really take the credit for it. He added that the use of goats is fairly common outside of the East Coast.
It’ll take about a week for the goats to finish the work, which includes ridding the environment of the invasive plants’ seeds as well.
The goats in this Congressional Cemetery are amongst the first on the east coast.
