Goats Return To Riverside Park This Week For 'Award Ceremony'

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — A small group of goats from the herd that spent its summer chomping weeds will return to the park this week for an "award ceremony," the Riverside Park Conservancy announced Monday.

The goats will be welcomed back to the park Thursday morning as the conservancy reveals the leaders of its "Vote the G.O.A.T (Greatest of all Time)" competition. The conservancy brought the goats into a hilly section of the park this summer to clear weeds, but sent the herd home ahead of schedule because they were too efficient.

The goat herd initially arrived in Riverside Park on May 21 to help clear a two-acre stretch of Riverside Park located between West 119th and 125th streets. Goats munched on invasive species such as porcelain berry, English ivy, mugwort, multiflora rose and poison ivy. Steep slopes and dense vegetation in the area make it hard for human landscapers to work effectively, but pose no issues for goats. Goats also have an insatiable apetite and a resistence to plants such as poison ivy, making them perfect all-natural weedwhackers.

The goats were so effective that the park conservancy is considering re-hiring them for the summer of 2020, the West Side Rag first reported.

The conservancy's summer program was called "GOaTHAM" as a play on New York City's nickname of Gotham. Gotham literally means "goat town" in Old English and was first meant as an insult to the city when it was introduced in the early 19th century, according to the conservancy.