Goat Life

Emily and William and their goat friends

PhThe goats of Hot Springs are a rowdy bunch.  About 50 of them in all, they are part of an experiment to help manage the invasive species in the park.  Invasive plants are plants that are not native to the area where they live and cause significant damage to the native plant life.  The worst invasives create monocultures where a handful of plants are the only thing growing in a large area.

Emily and William are the two folks on the project.  Their study involves surveying the field before and after they let goats munch on the plants for a few days.  That way they can see what plants the goats ate and determine if they can effectively clear invasive.  They also try to protect the existing native pine trees from the hungry goats by wrapping them in window mesh.  Despite their age, many of the pine trees are only 3-5 feet tall, they are very slow growing trees.

Emily is checking a survey plot Photocred: William

So why were their so many invasive plants in the first place? The area of the national park that has so many invasive plants is called Sleepy Valley.  Before it was part of the national park it was a suburban neighborhood.  Hot Springs National Park bought the land, demolished the buildings, and is attempting to return it to it's natural state.  The area is so important because the hot springs are recharged from water that falls in this area called the "recharge zone."  Development in the recharge zone causes pollutants like motor oil, sewage, pesticides to seep into the spring water which is one reason why the park bought the land.

The results of their experiment?  Still being worked out, one thing is for sure however, the goats ate lots of invasive plants!

There experiment is so cool that they were on NPR!

One of 100 survey plots