New Brighton hosted a small herd of goats at Creekview Park in Spring of 2022. The City of New Brighton was awarded a $5,000 grant through the Minnesota Department of Agriculture to help remove invasive Buckthorn from approximately ten acres of Creekview Park.  In order to accomplish this goal, the City will be using animals to tackle the problem in an eco-friendly, non-chemical way.

These goats will be safely enclosed in a fenced area at Creekview Park. While the goats are fun to watch, they are also extremely effective at helping to eradicate Buckthorn. While there, they will spend their time eating the brushy vegetation. Through their grazing habits, goats remove the plants themselves, but they reduce the production of seeds by consuming seeding stems. Therefore invasive plant species such as Buckthorn cannot sprout as the immature seeds consumed do not survive passage through the digestive tract.