A herd of goats coming to the rescue of a handful of imperiled turtles may sound like the plot of a Saturday morning children's cartoon show, but that's just what's happening in the Carroll County town of Hampstead.
The State Highway Administration has enlisted the help of about 40 goats to devour invasive plant species in wetlands along the path of the soon-to-open, 4.4-mile Hampstead Bypass to protect the habitat of the bog turtle - a species listed as threatened in Maryland.
State highway officials decided to give the goats a tryout as four-legged lawn mowers rather than to attack the unwanted vegetation with mechanical mowers that might have killed the diminutive reptiles or damaged their boggy habitat on the fringe of Hampstead. The goats - leased from a local farmer who prefers to remain anonymous - have been on the job for a week, and highway officials say that so far they seem to be up to the task.
Until now, the bog turtles have been getting all of the attention. Highway and environmental officials have spent years hashing out the details of the $85 million bypass, and finding ways for the road and the reptiles to co-exist. The site where the goats are employed was once right in the highway's path, but officials rerouted it to the ridgeline above to avoid the sensitive wetlands.
William L. Branch, a biologist with the highway agency's Office of Environmental Design, said the decision to use goats to swallow up vegetation at the site - which officials prefer not to identify specifically because of the threat of turtle-poaching for the exotic pet trade - was the result of collective brainstorming by state and federal officials on how to build the road without damaging the local turtle population.
Branch said the Hampstead experiment is Maryland's first use of goats in connection with a state road project. He said officials had heard about previous projects using goats to control vegetation in bog turtle habitats in New Jersey and Pennsylvania - two of the other states in the reptile's range.
If the goats do an exemplary job of clearing out such invasive species as multiflora rose and Japanese honeysuckle, their job may terminate with the end of growing season in late August, Branch said. If they've achieved only partial success, he said, they'll probably be brought back to finish the task next year.
Branch said that if the Hampstead experiment works, the goat strategy could "expand the toolbox" for highway planners facing environmental challenges in other locations.
