Four-Legged Helpers Chase Away Invasive Species on Governors Island
Governors Island has recruited squads of sheep and dogs to help manage a broad range of environmental threats on the 172-acre park. The sheep include Evening, Chad, Philip Aries, Bowie, and Jupiter—all recently arrived from the Friends of Tivoli Lake Preserve and Farm in Albany. They have been brought in for the spring and summer to chomp on invasive plant species, such as phragmites, bindweed, and mugwort, at Hammock Grove. These plants reproduce aggressively, and if left unchecked, can quickly reduce a local eco-system to a monoculture.
This is the fourth year that sheep have been deployed on Governors Island, where they have eaten 14.5 acres of foliage thus far. They are ideally suited to this work, because, unlike goats, their appetites do not include tree bark.
Also on patrol are a quartet of border collies—Atlas, Reed, Chip, and Aspen—who help control the population of geese by chasing them off lawns, while never harming them. Reed is named in honor of the late Jim Reed, a longtime member of the Governors Island staff who helped bring the first pack of working dogs to the park in 2015.
All four working dogs, whose natural herding instincts are ideally suited to this assignment, are adoptees, provided by a breed-specific organization, Mid-Atlantic Border Collie Rescue. While border collies are a powerful goose deterrent, their adversaries are persistent, which requires puppy-grade energy to keep the fowl from befouling the fields. The pack takes turns staying overnight on Governors Island, mostly working, with a human caretaker in tow, at dawn and dusk.