Goats Help Save Chesapeake Bay? Animals Reduce Reliance on Herbicides

When Mary Bowen, owner of Browsing Green Goats, set a herd of goats to browse on a Somerset County property to clear unwanted vegetation around a pond near the river, it was with 15 years of experience and a partnership with UMES Extension’s Dr. E. Nelson Escobar behind her.

Yes, that’s right, goats are browsers, not typically grazers.

Bowen attended one of Escobar’s small ruminant training sessions on artificial insemination in 2010, when they learned of their similar interests.

“He asked me why I had so many goats, and I told him that I wanted to get into clearing using them. ‘Why?’ he said. I answered that I saw what goats can do with firebreaks in California to help prevent wildfires and wondered what I could do in Maryland and Virginia. Realizing we are surrounded by water, I researched setting the goats and sheep near waterways. I thought it could help everyone get away from using glyphosate, a chemical herbicide, near the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries,” said Bowen, a self-proclaimed environmentalist.

Escobar, associate dean for extension and small ruminant specialist at UMES, dove in, helping the agricultural entrepreneur learn how to set fencing and what it would take to implement projects. Bowen’s inquiry fortuitously coincided with a capacity building grant (USDA/NIFA) awarded to Escobar to study the use of sheep and goats to manage unwanted vegetation.

“I appreciated her interest in what we were doing,” Escobar said. “We talked a couple of times about ideas and the experiences we had during the study, the culmination of which was a workshop on the subject matter. Mary took it to the next level and made it a successful business.”