Green Bay Reporter

Officials at the 1,000 Islands Environmental Center in Kaukauna are committed to doing all they can to gain control over unwanted plants at the site.

Recently, a battery of small goats with big appetites came to help chew on the problem.

"We are doing our first goat browsing for 2022,” Debbie Nowak, director and naturalist of the center, told WLUK this week. "It's just an opportunity for us to think outside the box, as far as invasive plant management.”

In all, 15 goats were summoned to pig out on as much as they could eat, including invasive species that can overrun the native plant habitat.

"Some of our biggest offenders are buckthorn,” the director said. “We have honeysuckle here. Garlic mustard."

Nowak noted that the Kaukauna preserve runs along the Fox River, and using plant-eating goats is better for the environment.

"Chemical is really the main thing that people are battling invasive species with these days," she told WLUK. "But you have to be careful what chemicals you're using, how much chemical is out there in nature, and where it's going."

Jodi Van Hout and her two children were among those who volunteered to come out and assist in the action as “Goat Watchers.”  

"Goats have their own personalities,” Van Hout said. “All of them. So, it's really interesting. We've got a couple of nippers in here, because they chew on our shoe laces a little bit. We try to direct their attention back to the plants."

Nowak said she expects to see all of it making a difference in the coming days.

"When they're doing that, they're taking away the plants' ability to make fuel through photosynthesis," she said. "So we're stressing out these plants. Repeated browsing stunts those plants enough that some of our native plants have a chance to grow."

The goats, on loan from Mulberry Lane Farm near Hilbert, are expected to lend their services for at least the next 10 days, WLUK said.