Caution: Goats at work

A herd of about 250 goats was recruited as weed whackers around the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery earlier this week. They’ll be back for another three- or four-day job in July. Like the weeds, the goats are perennial visitors to the fish hatchery, although their work schedule there gets shorter each year, a testament to their efficiency. “It’s such a natural way to eradicate the problem,” said Corky Broaddus, hatchery spokeswoman. The problem she speaks of has been acres of diffuse knapweed and dalmatian toadflax, two of the most noxious of noxious weeds. Healing Hooves LLC, an Edwall business owned by Craig and Sue Lani Madsen that uses goats and sheep for natural vegetation management, has contracted with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for weed removal at the fish hatchery for six or seven years, Broaddus said. Herbicides can’t be used near the fish hatchery because of their toxicity to fish. Mowers don’t cut low enough to keep weed seeds from spreading...more