NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Along the Cumberland River just north of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, tourists on party pontoons float past the recognizable skyline, but they also can see something a little less expected: hundreds of sheep nibbling on the grass along the riverbank. The urban sheepherder who manages this flock, Zach Richardson, said sometimes the tourist boats will go out of their way to let their passengers get a closer glimpse of the grazing a few hundred yards away from densely populated residential and commercial buildings.
The joy people get from watching sheep graze is partly why they are becoming trendy workers in some urban areas. “Everybody that comes out here and experiences the sheep, they enjoy it more than they would someone on a zero-turn mower or a guy with a leaf blower or a weed eater,” Richardson said. Using sheep for prescribed grazing is not a new landscaping method, but more urban communities are opting for it to handle land management concerns such as invasive species, , protection of native vegetation and animal habitats and maintaining historic sites.
Nashville’s parks department hired the Chew Crew in 2017 to help maintain Fort Negley, a Civil War-era Union that had weeds growing between and along its stones that lawnmowers could easily chip. Sheep now graze about 150 acres (60.7 hectares) of city property annually, including in the historic Nashville City Cemetery.
“It is a more environmentally sustainable way to care for the gree.