Airport employs goats to trim the grass

Updated
Airport employs goats to trim the grass
Airport employs goats to trim the grass

Goats graze on a plot of land owned by Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. PA



Chicago is set to get a new tourist attraction in the form of goats trimming the grass at O'Hare International Airport.

Fox Chicago News reports that the Chicago Department of Aviation recently put out a bid for someone to supply goats to graze on the grass at the airport. It's also looking for a goat herder.

This week Atlanta's airport began using goats to trim the grass and San Francisco has already been using them for years. Seattle's airport once tried it but soon scrapped the plan.

Amy Malick, the point person for sustainability at the department of aviation, says Chicago is looking at a pilot programme of getting 30 goats to eat the grass and weeds in one hard-to-mow area.



'They may have steep slopes, very hard to get to with heavy machinery, and those machines also emit pollution,' Malick told Fox Chicago News. 'They're burning fossil fuel. So as a sustainability initiative we're looking to bring in animals that do not have emissions associated with them, at least to the same extent that heavy machinery would.'

Malick says the goats would be outside the security fence surrounding the airport so it would not be possible for them to wander onto the runways.

Chicago city says it has already received good responses from a couple of goat farmers interested in the plan, which is capped at $100,000.

Watch Fox Chicago News' video report below:



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