Four-legged weed-whackers provide essential services

If you were recently surprised by a herd of goats near Lake Elizabeth, rest easy—the weed-munching ruminants have not escaped the wild to feast on our park. No, what you saw were 650 hard-working members of Living Systems Land Management’s (LSLM) weed abatement team.

Goats and sheep have been used for years as agents of land management and are popular alternative to labor-intensive mowing, herbicides, and biological interventions such as insects and fungi. For the last five years, the city of Fremont has contracted with LSLM to manage Lake Elizabeth and Sabrecat Park.

Mike and Jan Canaday run LSLM from their base in Coalinga, where they own about a hundred acres of land—but it takes a lot more than that to run LSLM. “We have about 4000 goats and 3000 sheep,” Says Mike Canaday. “In the off-season, we graze about 4500 acres in the Central Valley.” The Canadays bring the pregnant goats to their modest ranch, but for the majority of the year, his herds and flocks can be found all over California reducing invasive plants in order to restore native populations, or creating firebreaks.

“We have one group of animals up in Santa Rosa,” says Canaday, “one or two groups that hang out in the Bay Area, and we we usually have one in San Jose . There’s another bunch in Southern California below LA. The groups stay in their areas for the season; we don’t truck them from one end of the state to the other.”

LSLM’s goats are “Boer crosses,” introduced to the US from South Africa in the 1990s. According to Canaday, compared to other goats, they are “just a little more civilized. They aren’t so spooky and they’re easier to get a long with.” The choice of whether to use goats or sheep at a particular location is usually decided by the plants that need management and the type of site. In vineyards and orchards, for instance, sheep, which are selective in their diet, only eat the targeted plants. Goats, on the other hand, “can tear up a vineyard,” says Canaday. Goats can also grow tired of certain plants, so long-term management often includes switching between sheep and goats every couple of seasons.

Goats are used especially where noxious weeds need abatement. They eat the flower heads and leave the stalks, preventing the plants from going to seed. They also eat the leaves, and without the attendant photosynthesis, the plants die out without building a strong root system.

Some of the plants that goats have managed successfully include Yellow and Purple Star thistles, French, Spanish, and Scotch brooms, European annual grasses and a list of other noxious plants that degrade both plant and animal habitats.

In California there are over 30 grazing businesses, but, according to Canaday, “for the size of operation like ours, there are only four or five.” There are no universally adopted standards for the grazing business, but because protection of both the environment and the animals is of paramount importance, LSLM adheres to essential management practices outlined on its website (http://www.livingsystemslandmanagement.com/Standards.html) which cover herd density, animal choice, humane treatment of the animals, plant identification, fuel reduction (for firebreaks), fire hazards, and more.

Onsite shepherds (the term covers goats and sheep) monitor the herds at the worksite 24/7. Additionally, portable electric fences keep the herds in precisely the area under treatment. Canaday says that the fences do not constitute a physical barrier, per se. Rather, they constitute a “psychological barrier.” Since LSLM never buys animals, but only uses what the herd breeds, every animal is brought up in the neighborhood of such fences. The goats have created a culture of fence avoidance, which the young animals adopt. More importantly, the fences protect the goats from predators, anything from dogs to mountain lions, depending on the setting. The most common problem is coyotes. “Coyotes won’t jump a fence,” says Canaday, “they’ll try to go under it, and if they do, the fence bites them a little and keeps them away.”

Border collies are essential to moving the herds into place and getting them on and off the trucks. “We couldn’t do this without them,” says Canaday. In fact, raising border collies was how he got into the business. Canaday is a former president of the United States Border Collie Handlers Association, and as such knew a lot of people in the livestock business, providing trained cattle- and sheep-dogs to many of them. Through contacts made around that time, the Canadays took the opportunity to purchase LSLM when the opportunity arose in 2002.

“The reason there aren’t a lot of people in this business,” says Canaday. “is that you spend all the money you made in the grazing season cutting firebreaks [in the off season] and just trying to hang on until next year. “We have to buy a lot of other feed, like alfalfa hay, and it’s expensive, but once you get it figured out, it works; it’s not a get rich quick scheme—it’s a lot of work.”

Cutting firebreaks is a significant part of LSLM’s business, and the recent wildfires have touched the Canadays: “Our off-season grazing area is about a mile from where 70,000 acres burned up in the Thomas fire.” It was close enough to make Canaday take to heart the trauma faced by so many. “I can’t imagine having to load up a truck with as much as I could take and get out of town with my wife and a few dogs—that’s just shattering to me.”

The fires became personal for Canaday, though, in another way. Firebreaks made by LSLM animals in Santa Rosa were responsible for saving an entire homowners association neighborhood, even when two adjacent ones were leveled. Cal Fire credited the weed abatement managed by LSLM for denying crucial fuel to the fires, which swept around, but not through the area. In a nearby wooded area, jobs at a medical instrument company were saved because firebreak maintenance under LSLM helped preserve the building.

Canaday feels quite fortunate that his business could have such a positive impact and “change the destiny” of people’s lives.

Does he have a plan for the future? “I’ll probably do this until I die.” Retirement plan? “Absolutely not,” he replies with a laugh. “If we didn’t like doing this,” he says, “we wouldn’t do it; but, we like it—we like the people, we like the animals, we like going to different places. You get see places that many people don’t get access to. It keeps us young and we love it; it’s just a good way to live.”