Phragmites (pronounced frag-mite-eez) is a particularly aggressive kind of grass that looks like a towering reed. It poses a massive threat to green spaces across Ontario, choking out other plants and destroying habitats for wildlife. In the last few years, the species has hit the Niagara Region particularly hard. The Ontario government recently earmarked $13 million to fight phragmites. But a team of 40 goats (nicknamed the Green Grazers) are already on the case, deployed to weed out the invasive species.
This summer, the Grazers have chomped on the enemy in a natural preservation area for about eight hours a day. For Maclean’s, Courtney Shea interviewed Victoria Kaleniuk, the Niagara Parks environmental planning technician who initiated the goat offensive, about why the herbivorous, four-stomached animals are uniquely qualified to tackle the problem. “Goats will eat anything!” she explains. “They’re known as the bush hogs of the farming world.”
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
