This Jersey Shore town hired 15 goats and they’re already at work

🐐 Fifteen goats are spending two weeks in Sea Girt eating invasive plants around Wreck Pond.

🌿 The animals are targeting knotweed, honeysuckle, mugwort, English ivy and other non-native growth.

👀 Visitors can watch the goats at work but are being asked not to feed or pet them.

SEA GIRT — Fifteen goats have returned to this Jersey Shore town with a job to do: eat invasive plants

On Wednesday, Sea Girt brought in 15 goats from Rhinebeck, New York, which is home to 7,500 people and sits along the Hudson River. Rhinebeck is also home to Green Goats — the farm that brought Lulu, Honey and 13 other goats to New Jersey.

The borough said the animals will be in Sea Girt for two weeks to thin out non-native plants on steep slopes at Wreck Pond.

Sea Girt Goats

These invasive plants are on the goats' menu

According to Green Goats, they'll chomp on:

🌺 Japanese Knotweed,
🌺 Japanese Honeysuckle,
🌺 Mugwort,
🌺 Smilex,
🌺 English Ivy, and
🌺 the Tree of Heaven.

These plants have dominated the five acres around Wreck Pond, and other efforts to remove them have been unsuccessful, according to the borough. The use of goats is natural and environmentally friendly because it minimizes the use of herbicides and heavy mechanical equipment, according to the Sea Girt Conservancy.

The goats can be seen on The Terrace between Fourth and Fifth Ave.

Sea Girt Goats

However, visitors are asked not to pet them because their coats could be covered in oils from Poison Ivy. People also shouldn't feed the goats, because they need their appetites to do their jobs.

It's not the first time that Green Goats has been to Sea Girt; they visited last year with the same mission. Councilman Alan Zakin and Councilwoman Diane Anthony discussed the return of the goat grazing program at a May 13 borough council meeting.

Video of the goats hard at work last year can be seen on YouTube. 👇

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