Canada Thistle, Sow Thistle, and Knotting Thistle are among the invasive species that threaten the largest intact rough fescue grasslands in North America.

Ensuring that those native species remain as part of the ecological landscape at Nose Hill Park is the City of Calgary’s targeted grazing program.

This year, 800 goats from BAAH’D Plant Management and Reclamation will be grazing on the eastern slopes of Nose Hill along 14 Street NW, chomping on those invasive species while also helping to restore the land for native grasses and flowers that would have grown there during the days of the buffalo.

“Without any sort of natural disturbance, like grazing or burns—which the [vegetation on the] hill would have naturally evolved with—we would see that the woody invasives would end up taking over, and we’d see a shrub land and a forest here. We would lose our grassland,” said Andrew Phelps, an ecologist with the City of Calgary.

“The reason we have selected this area, which is the Rubbing Stone Management Area, is because there is a high concentration or abundance of our native grasses here, and rough fescue is primarily the one that we’re interested in. It has been dwindling across the Great Plains and Alberta as a whole.”

The return of the goats in 2024, after a successful period of grazing in 2022, is part of a longer-term strategy by the City of Calgary to maintain the ecological integrity of the park.

The city has been using goats as an all-natural plant management solution since 2016.

“I think the beauty about them is that they’re not just here for biomass removal. There’s many other value-added services that they provide. They provide aeration and soil tillage, which helps our native species establish, and that’s when the goats walk across the landscape they till up that soil,” said Phelps.

“They also provide fertilization, which helps cycle that vegetation back into the landscape.”

He said that the goats also engage the public in the work of ecological conservation at Nose Hill, which then increases the public’s ecological literacy.

Parts of Nose Hill will be closed to the public until Sept. 19

Jeanette Hall, a shepherd and owner of BAAH’D Plant Management and Reclamation, said that each of the 800 goats can eat around eight pounds of biomass per day, and that the goats have been trained over 30 years to be particularly interested in invasive species.

“All herbivores learn to eat from their parents. So, because this herd has been doing it for 30 years, they’re trained on certain weeds. They’ve been exposed to lots of weeds. So we know we can guarantee to our clients when we show up, we are going to eat the weeds,” she said.

Beyond that, she said, there is a ton of science that goes into using goats for land management.

“There’s a ton of thinking and planning that goes into what we’re actually doing because we are just mimicking how Bison would have worked on these sites. We’re doing what you’ve got to imagine millions of pounds and feet of bison doing tromping over this hill. They graze it right down, but they leave. That’s the important thing, is that they leave. So more animals the better. Shorter the better,” Hall said.

The goat herd will spend two weeks on Nose Hill, and during their stay, they will be living in goat pens at night right on the hill itself.

Hall said that to manage that many animals, and to protect the other animals that live on Nose Hill—including predators like coyotes, hawks, and crows—there will be dedicated guard dogs surrounding the herd.

Those dogs will serve as a deterrent to predators, and as Hall likes to point out, she has never lost a goat to a predator despite working in environments with other ones like bears, wolves, and cougars.

In turn though, the City of Calgary and Hall are asking the public to stay away from both the herd and the working dogs during their stay at Nose Hill.

“We have trained livestock Guardian dogs that can be at large. So, they are trained to bark and scare and alert us if there is someone who they perceive as a hazard. If people are screaming at our dogs, or yelling at them, they’re only going to make those dogs bark more.”

Portions of the Nose Hill pathway system and parkland near the 64 Avenue NW parking lot will also be closed to the public during the 14 days the goats are doing their work.

For more details on the targeted grazing program, see www.calgary.ca/our-services/goats-targeted-grazing.html.

Photos of the 2024 goat targeted grazing program