Downtown Gets Its Goats

By Eric Richardson
Published: Monday, September 08, 2008, at 01:15PM

Goats at Angels Knoll Eric Richardson [Flickr]

A goat nibbles on a palm tree on the Angels Knoll hillside Monday morning.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Commuters coming out of the 4th and Hill subway station got a bit of a start this morning, as their escalator ride brought them face-to-face with the sight of a hillside of goats.

The herd of 100 goats are part of a CRA program to clear the steep hillside between Upper and Lower Angels Knoll parks. The goats, from Ranchito Tivo Boer Goat in Chino, are slated to be on the site for two weeks. Those on hand for the project's kickoff this morning doubted it would take the hungry animals that long to clear the hillside.

On hand to view the goats this morning, Community Redevelopment Agency CEO Cecilia V. Estolano credited Project Manager Len Betz with the inspiration for using goats to clear the hillside. Betz got the idea from his father, who runs a wheat farm in Oklahoma. After talking to his dad about the use of goats on the farm, Betz heard an NPR piece on the use of goats for brush clearance. "Instead of doing our traditional mow, blow and go, we got on the Internet and searched for goatherder services," Betz recalls. In doing so they found George Gonzalez and Ranchito Tivo.

The use of goats instead of a crew with weedwhackers will save the agency several thousand dollars, and help to further its green objectives by reducing emissions and noise the work would have generated.

That the program would create such a curious sight for commuters coming off the subway at 4th and Main was a fun side effect. "Just look at people coming off the subway and looking at this and taking pictures on their cell phones," Estolano remarked while looking down from Upper Angels Knoll. "It's fabulous."

Estolano and Betz were on hand this morning at 9:30am to watch the herdsmen from Ranchito Tivo guide the animals from their pen in Upper Angels Knoll Park to the hillside. Fencing was installed along the adjacent stairway to keep the goats from making their way down to Grand Central Market.

The animals will eat eight to ten hours a day, and will spend their nights in the upper park pen. Their voracious appetite was evident even before they were released onto the hillside, with two trees inside the pen area having been stripped of bark.

Related:


Goats at Angels Knoll Eric Richardson

ABC7 attempts to interview the goats in their pen before the animals were released onto the hillside.

Goats at Angels Knoll Eric Richardson

A stampede of goats make their way onto the hillside via the stairs connecting Upper and Lower Angels Knoll parks.

Goats at Angels Knoll Eric Richardson

A line of goats run toward their meal, a hillside full of weeds.

Goats at Angels Knoll Eric Richardson

Community Redevelopment Agency CEO Cecilia Estolano with Project Manager Len Betz at this morning's goat event.

Goats at Angels Knoll Eric Richardson

The goat-filled hillside at Angels Knoll will be the source of many a double-take over the next two weeks.


Comments

1
Dave Bullock writes:

Now they will need to get chupacabras to clean up all the feral goats. And then what to eat the chupacabras?

# on Sep.08.2008 AT 02:52 PM
2
Dennis Smith writes:

If New York City can have a Sheep Meadow and San Francisco has a Cow Hollow, can't Los Angeles have a Goat Knoll?

# on Sep.08.2008 AT 03:37 PM
3
Bert Green writes:

Yummy, Chupacabra....

# on Sep.08.2008 AT 05:50 PM
4
Rudy writes:

Seeing the goats made my day.

# on Sep.08.2008 AT 06:28 PM
5
Brigham writes:

One of the best ideas the CRA ever came up with! I love it!

# on Sep.08.2008 AT 09:06 PM
6
Benjamin Pezzillo writes:

It was quite surreal to look up on that hillside this evening and see it speckled with goats. I do see a photograph of it materializing already.

# on Sep.08.2008 AT 11:14 PM
7
Paulette writes:

What a brilliant idea. Can't wait to make my way over to see this for myself.

# on Sep.09.2008 AT 10:56 AM
8
mtbker writes:

ingenious! I need one in my backyard slope to get rid of the weeds.

# on Sep.09.2008 AT 11:17 AM
9
Chrissy the Stooges Woman writes:

It's wonderful. I'm not sure why, but it just is!

# on Sep.09.2008 AT 11:39 AM
10
Effie writes:

The goats really made my day, which made me realize how nature-starved I am working downtown. I just followed up on this in the LA Times. Apparently Angels Knoll is slated to become another office tower. Which makes me sad -- one of the last chunks of downtown green will be gone.

# on Sep.09.2008 AT 01:44 PM
11
LAofAnaheim writes:

Effie - I would love to see California Plaza 3 be built, but that's on indefinite hold. The original plan was all 3 Cal Plaza's to be built, but the 3rd never got off the ground. After years of waiting, the park idea has come to be. The rights are still with the developer to build Cal Plaza 3, but I cannot see that happen. Though, it would be great to have more density in Los Angeles. The Times, is just behind, the (uh)...times.

# on Sep.09.2008 AT 02:48 PM
12
John Crandell writes:

Not so quick, Effie.

A high-rise tower or a set-piece of mid-rise towers set amidst a multi-level array of terraces plus an imaginative set of elevators and curved escalators to elevate pedestrians from the Redline portal directly up to the Watergarden would be an urban design improvement. The terraces should be a horticultural wonderland and assist in the tower's LEED certification as well. The tower could be multi-use with a combination of retail, business and residential spaces. At the bottom level, along the pedestrian promenade along Hill Street, the foundations of old should be replaced by an array of individual, human-scale structures that would pay tribute to old Bunker Hill, all-out Victoriana, to complement Angels' Flight. Otherwise, this area will remain as a refuge for loiterers, overnighters and litterers.

The plan for this block developed by Charles Moore and Frank Gehry as part of the "All Stars" Maguire Partners proposal in the 1980 Bunker Hill Design Competition would be a good starting point. Those goats are charming to behold but pedestrian access to the top should be elevated to top priority.

This particular block really deserves it's own design competition.

# on Sep.09.2008 AT 03:41 PM
13
Mel writes:

Love me some goats!

# on Sep.10.2008 AT 03:17 PM
14
dubby writes:

The goats the CRA hired girdled and killed a good deal of all the trees at the site.

Nice one CRA.

# on Mar.10.2009 AT 12:52 PM

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