'Goats eat everything': Brooklyn taps into a natural alternative to chemical weed removal

Four goats - named Max, Cinnamon, Swirl and Unicorn - clear weeds from Brooklyn's Prospect Park as a natural alternative to chemical weed removal.

A Brooklyn park is using a herd of goats as a natural alternative to chemical weed removal. Source: Reuters

A herd of goats is working on a woodland restoration project in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park as part of a natural solution to weed removal.

Four goats named Max, Cinnamon, Swirl, and Unicorn consume leaves, poison ivy and other weeds every day, clearing the way for native trees to be replanted.

About 30 large trees were knocked down in the park during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, leading to large gaps in the forest that allowed weeds to proliferate.

Christian Zimmerman, Prospect Park Alliance vice president of capital and landscape management, said the goats are a useful alternative to chemical weed killing.

"It's Brooklyn's last forest and we're trying to bring back all the native habitat for the area,” Mr Zimmerman said.

"Goats eat leaves and they eat everything. They eat poison ivy. They're kind of like the frontal attack.

“We didn't want to use chemicals. People in the community, people in Brooklyn, really would like it that us park managers ... stopped that or really reduced that.”