Firefighting Goats Graze to Prevent Wildfires, Erosion in Chile Forests

In Chile, firefighting goats are used to prevent wildfires by grazing in the region, which also helps to avoid erosion.

Locals in Santa Juana, in southern Chile were severely affected by wildfires earlier this year.

Firefighting Goats in Chile

The goats have already prevented the Bosques de Chacay's natural forest from being devastated by fires in February that left dozens of people dead, tens of thousands injured, and about 440,000 hectares of land damaged in south-central Chile.

The 16-hectare park was surrounded by fires, but according to Rocio Cruces, co-founder of Buena Cabra, a project that employs goats to build firebreaks, it ended up being the sole remaining green space.

Grazing Goats

The method, which is applied in Portugal and Spain as well, makes use of grazing goats to manage dry grasslands and other vegetation that contribute to summertime forest fires.

Additionally, goat droppings improve the soil's quality and stop additional erosion.

Less than 10% of the park, according to Cruces, was impacted by the fire when it reached the forest. Ms. said that while tiny fires did start, they did not spread because there was little nearby foliage.

Cruces began the initiative in response to devastating wildfires in 2017.

Since then, her herd has increased from 16 goats to 150, and she wants to encourage others to do the same.

There is a failure in fire prevention in Chile, according to Francisco Di Napoli, a University of Concepcion forestry engineer, who is familiar with the method. The phrase "strategic grazing" refers to this.

These animals, according to Di Napoli, can do a lot for Chile.

He added that other organizations should assess its applicability, locate fuel, and have goats graze on it, ABC Australia reports.

Goats Against Wildfires

When April comes and the rains stop, the grass turns crisp and brown; the smallest spark can start a massive blaze, he continued, adding that these creatures can help. However, the menace is not well-armed. Prescribed burns, which are intentionally started to burn the dangerous dry fuel, can become out of control very rapidly, as happened at Los Alamos in 2000.

The goats enter the picture at this point.

Veterinarian Brea McGrew and her husband Bob, a firefighter, have been doing a lot of environmental fire safety work with their four-footed weed cutters, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

The McGrews' diligent goats can be seen munching during the six-month fire season in the hills above Berkeley and Oakland, on the coastal slopes behind Monterey, and behind beachside homes in Malibu. Brea McGrew won't even try to guess how many goats there are in their herd, but she does say there are thousands of them.

The goats stay at each grazing location for about a month; they are kept in check not by a traditional fence, which would be costly and time-consuming to erect, but rather by GPS collars that sound an alert when their users approach the system's virtual boundaries, according to Science That Matters.