A herd of goats hard at work on Fitch Mountain open space preserve in Sonoma County. Service provided by Chasin Goat Grazing.
The City of Healdsburg Fire Department is incorporating goat grazing along with other forest health initiatives to reduce ladder fuels and create a safer healthier forest, throughout the open space preserves and surrounding communities. Goat grazing is a great, low impact way to reduce brush and lower the potential for a canopy fire to occur. Along with eating poison oak, English ivy and broom; These tremendous animals also fertilize as they work.
Frontier Resource Management provides forestry consulting services to ensure practices such as these do not damage the environment while enriching the community through sustainable forestry and conservation. We are currently updating the Fitch Mountain Open Space Preserve forest management plan to increase the effectiveness of vegetation treatment practices such as this.
The picture below was take immediately after the goats were moved. It shows the effectiveness of this treatment along with the low level of environmental impact.
Villa Chanticleer. Neighboring property to Fitch Mountain Open Space Preserve.
If you would like to learn more about the benefits of grazing for fuels reduction, or if interested in how to get the most out of your forest management plan, reach out to us at https://www.frmforestry.com/ .
What a great article. Thank you Jacob for all your hard work and expertise to make this happen. It’s all about, how do we get to “yes” before the fire. Linda Collister Fire Marshal/Division Chief