COLLEGE PARK, Ga. -- With a few whistles and command calls, Brian
Cash and his crew of border collies corral a herd of sheep for
breakfast, lunch and dinner (and plenty of snacks in between).
"There are very few things that they turn away. They love poison ivy.
They eat blackberries that have thorns. And they eat these things
willingly. If they have options they will still select those types of
foods," said Cash, the owner of Ewe-niversally Green.
In just two days, his herd of 100 has eaten through nearly half of
the waist high weeds in the test acre lot along Riverdale Drive near the
airport. The airport has about 3,000 acres of raw land it must
maintain, to make sure weeds and seedlings don't grow into habitat for
birds and other wildlife that could endanger activities at the airport.
"So far I'm liking what I see," said Chris Davis the assistant
maintenance director for Hartsfield Jackson International Airport.
A private donor paid for the airport to test out the sheep for a
week, to see if they would eat what's on the menu and how fast the
cheerful chompers could do it. The airport can then do the math, to
compare costs with chemicals, machines and manual labor.
"The cost factor to this is probably the biggest unknown that I have," said Davis.
Other airports have given the furry weed whackers a try. Chicago is
taking bids right now to hire a crew. San Francisco uses them every year
to control the brush in a protected wetlands area, where pesticides
aren't allowed. Seattle tried it one year for similar reasons, but says
it had to build too many cages to protect the plants it wanted to keep.
Beyond cost is safety.
"That particular hillside leads up to a runway and so I have to be
able to control and make sure I don't get any of the animals that may
want to migrate up the hill," said Davis.
Right now, a solar operated electric fence keeps the goats in check.
But TSA may want something more substantial and Cash would need a way to
access his flock several times a day. The airport says it will take
several months to crunch the numbers, and make its decision.