University of Georgia
IN-48: Innovation B

The UGA Chew Crew is a student-lead effort to restore neglected green spaces on campus to their former glory using goats. We have two enclosures, one at Tanyard Creek and one at Driftmier Woods, where we set the goats free to do what they do best. Chew! The goats eat invasive plants and some native ones too then we go back afterwards to sow the seeds of native species in hopes of swinging the ecological balance back in their favor.

For the past few decades, goats and sheep have been used in the Western U.S. to successfully manage invasive weeds in rangeland, and to reduce the risk of wildfire in urban areas. More recent studies in the Midwest and Northeast have shown prescribed goat grazing to effectively eliminate invasive species such as European buckthorn, Amur honeysuckle, and multiflora rose, and a study at North Carolina State University found goats to be effect at controlling kudzu. At present, however, there is little specific data supporting the relative effectiveness of prescribed grazing for managing the most common invasive species in the U.S. Southeast. The Chew Crew project thus represents an opportunity for UGA faculty and students to document how various plant species respond to repeated grazing.

Despite overcoming new obstacles with COVID-19, the Chew Crew were still able to remove 1,947 invasive plant species from the Tanyard Site in the Fall of 2020.