At Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, a new group of workers has arrived with a rather unusual job description. They are expected to spend the coming months eating their way through dry vegetation.
The base has brought in 471 goats as part of a pilot project aimed at reducing the amount of flammable brush around parts of the installation. That means the 471 animals will have several months to work across the areas selected for the pilot. MCAS Miramar officials therefore see vegetation management as part of protecting both the installation and neighbouring communities.
Bush said the goats can work through between one and five acres in a day. MCAS Miramar is home to several endangered species, according to officials. Allen said he had supported the idea of using goats on the base for years.
Rather than relying entirely on machinery or sending crews into difficult terrain, officials are testing whether controlled grazing can provide another way to prepare potential fire breaks. The pace of the grazing will depend on the vegetation and conditions at each site. The intention is not simply to remove every plant. Instead, the grazing is being tested as a practical way of reducing vegetation in places where creating and maintaining fire breaks can be complicated. Wildfire does not stop at the edge of a military installation, and fire moving through the region can affect land on either side of the base boundary. Bringing large machines into sensitive areas can disturb vegetation and habitat, while repeated vehicle movement can create its own environmental impacts. The pilot is intended to establish whether grazing can reduce some of those effects while still achieving the vegetation clearance required for fire management. For MCAS Miramar Fire Department Fire Chief Joshua Allen, the arrival of the goats follows a proposal that had been discussed for much of the past decade. The current programme gives officials a chance to test the concept in actual working conditions rather than relying on assumptions about how well it might perform. It is also being described by the base as the first programme of its kind at a US military installation. If the results support wider use, the method could become part of how MCAS Miramar manages vegetation around its perimeter and other fire-prone areas. The same trial could also offer information for other military installations considering whether managed grazing is suitable for their own landscapes.
