Looking out from their Qualicum Beach fences Monday, Gordy Leverington and his neighbours couldn’t believe what they saw in the alley behind their homes. “No way. This is quite a surprise,” Leverington told CHEK News on Monday.
“I wondered what all the noise was going on in the back. Come around and look, holy mackerel, we got a herd of goats.” So the small town neighbours did what came naturally, quickly jumping in to carry and welcome newcomers hands-on.
“By all means, this is just beautiful,” said Leverington as he carried a baby goat to an enclosure nearby. It turns out the Town of Qualicum Beach has hired 19 goats to get to work on a wildly overgrown alley between Garden Road and Sixth Street. Within moments of hitting the ground, they were already showing off to do what they do best: eating, or at least trying to eat, everything in reach.
Watch the report below: “They sure didn’t waste any time getting started to work,” said Jason Gray, an employee with the Town of Qualicum Beach Parks Department. Gray said the town wanted to try something different to tackle its greenspaces by hiring local goatscaping company, Oceanside Goatscaping and Vegetation Control , over heavy machinery. “Because it’s so noisy, all the machinery, the weed eating.
It’s enough to drive you batty,” said Qualicum Beach resident Linda Whitten. “I know the last time we cleared this alley, they used heavy equipment, and it was a little bit more invasive to the subsurface, .