Meet the Sheep: BART Welcomes a New Animal to Its Fire Mitigation Toolkit

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Commentary

July 25, 2023 | Rapid Transit

Meet the Sheep: BART Welcomes a New Animal to Its Fire Mitigation Toolkit

Written by Bay Area Rapid Transit Communications Department



For the past two years, BART’s grazing goats have munched away at dried grasses around BART property. It’s a winning deal for the bleaters and for BART: the goats want to eat, and BART wants to sustainably mitigate fire hazards around its property. And the public love them, too; earlier this year, BART unveiled a horned anime mascot inspired by the caprine.

But this year, the goats are gone. Fret not, though, as there’s another photogenic nibbler in town. BART has added a new animal to its fire mitigation arsenal: self-shearing sheep. ... Sheep and goats belong to the same subfamily, Caprinae, and they both like to eat. Sheep, however, prefer grazing grasses and short roughage, while goats gravitate toward taller woody plants. It’s beneficial to rotate the animals every few years, said Mike Canaday, owner of the Coalinga-based Living Systems Land Management, from which BART contracts its fire-mitigating grazers.

“BART has been using goats for a while now, meaning there’s more fine grasses and less brush now,” Canaday said. “The sheep graze the grasses, while the goats go for the coarser brittle.” ... Josh Soltero, a Fence and Irrigation Technician at BART who supports the grazing project, has noticed some key personality differences in his time working with the animals.




“The sheep look like fluffy goats,” he said. “But the goats are a little friendlier. They’ll come up to you and feel you out. The sheep are more standoffish.”

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[MuseRider]

1. This is wonderful!

Around here a few farmers used Camels (a sight as you buzzed through the Flint Hills on I 70). Quite a few use goats. No need to cover the ground with poison, who knew? We are such idiots, this should have been going on for decades. At least this is not just now new, lets make it common.

[wryter2000]

2. We're used to seeing goats on the hills

When I lived in the Oakland hills, my neighbor had put up a temporary fence and had goats clearing brush around his house.

I had to go out and do it around our house once a year, subsequent to a nice note the fire department would leave. I used to find interesting critters. One year, I met a tarantula, and I explained to it that we'd do just fine together if it went in one direction and I went in the other.

I much prefer living in the flat lands.

[marked50]

3. Brought back an old memory of the use of sheep for something you wouldn't really think of.

Back in the old times, when the now Oakland Athletics were the Kansas City Athletics the owner at the time, Charlie Finley, had a great idea.

They used to play in the KC Municipal Stadium and the over-the-right field wall was a very steep slope of a side of hill. It was topped by a fence I believe. What Finley did was plant it in grass and since it was really too steep for any kind of mower, he had sheep grazing on it. Complete with a decked our old time Shepherd.

Sometimes it was more exciting to watch that activity than anything on the field.

[Karadeniz]

4. California does it again !

[CoopersDad]

5. We use goats in Santa Cruz along the rail corridor.

I did not know that sheep are an option, but it makes sense.

Our goats could stand on their hind legs and trim low lying branches, I'm not sure that sheep can do that.