The city of Ukiah's newest employees have floppy ears, hooves, and will eat almost anything you put in front of them, which makes them the perfect fit for their job: eating invasive species and flammable material on the Ukiah section of the Great Redwood Trail.
Most years, the City of Ukiah hires contracts inmate crews from Chamberlain Creek Camp, a prison in Mendocino, to remove excess brush from the abandoned Ukiah train tracks and a few other city properties. But due to both COVID and the massive amount of fires burning around the state, those crews were sent elsewhere.
This is an important job, as excess brush is proven to have a direct relationship to more severe fires.
So the City hired Tony Gonzalez, owner and founder of Gonzalez Brush Busters, and his 200 goats to do the work. So far, the project has been a success. The goats seem to be doing their work -- clearing the ground of everything edible, and are bringing smiles to the faces of many Ukiah residents.