Grazing goats wanted for wildfire protection at California observatory

The observatory is currently campaigning to raise money to hire the goats -- and their herders -- for an initial season.

They’re affectionally known as the fire-eating goats: Star Grazer, Chewbacca, Galileo and Death — Destroyer of the Weeds.

The goats don’t actually eat the flames. They feed on its fuel. Soon the resourceful animals will be grazing the hills of Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose, surrounding Lick Observatory — destined to clear the brush and make the expansive pasture less prone to fire.

“There’s a big history of fires sweeping through the Diablo Range,” said Matthew Shetrone, deputy director of the University of California Observatories. “If you’re going to put a $65 (million) or $70 million facility at the top of a mountain, fire likes to climb mountains, so you’ve got to make sure you’re well protected.”

Over the past several decades, devastating fires have blackened the mountain. In 2020, the SCU Lightning Complex Fire burned 396,624 acres — the third-largest wildfire in California history — and came dangerously close to enveloping the more than century-old observatory. Fifty firefighters made an overnight stay on Mount Hamilton and stopped the blaze just 25 yards from several of the telescope domes.

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Bringing goats to Mount Hamilton comes a year after the UC system utilized the livestock at its Santa Cruz campus, an initiative Shetrone described as a success. The observatory is currently campaigning to raise money to hire the goats — and their shepherds — for an initial season. The observatory is hoping to obtain a grant to fund the weed eaters for years to come.

Right now, the priority is to deploy goats around the cell towers, especially because new ones have been installed this year and are critical for emergency services. If there’s enough money, the observatory intends to station goats around the helipad and create a 5-acre buffer around some of the telescope buildings. The ultimate goal would be to cover more than 58 acres.

As of Monday afternoon, the observatory has raised nearly $72,000. They have yet to finalize a contract with a goat vendor.

Because the goats won’t make their grand arrival until May and June, the observatory is still working out some of the details.

There are concerns about deploying the goats, including the potential for predators.

“We don’t know if the mountain lions will come out of the nearby mountains and eat up all the goats or what other problems we’ll have,” Shetrone said.

To comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, the observatory must conduct a plant survey to identify any endangered plant species on Mount Hamilton and determine how to protect them from the grazing goats.

Using goats for fire protection has become an increasingly popular strategy in recent years for beating back brush as California’s wildfires intensify.

Genevieve Church, executive director at the San Francisco-based goat company City Grazing, said she’s seen a dramatic shift in the Bay Area in the last five to ten years as the seasons are quickly evolving.

While drought-plagued years have been a concern for many fire experts, rainy seasons, like this past winter, also pose fire risks. “When we have a drought, we have faster dry out, and in years we do have significant rainfall, we have more growth that is drying out faster,” Church said.

Many of City Grazing’s clients — which include municipalities, universities and schools — contract their goat services in May and June. However, many of California’s worst wildfires in recent years have occurred in the fall — most of that stemming from regrowth, Church said.

“We get as much done as we can in the early spring,” she said, “but really the best time in terms of preventing fires is between August to October.”