Goats Coming to Naperville's Knoch Knolls Park

The Naperville Park District soon will welcome a group of eco-friendly grazers to clear invasive shrubs and poison ivy efficiently and naturally while feasting to their hearts’ content. 

Beginning Tuesday, Sept. 24, a herd of 45 goats from Kim Hunter’s Green Goats in Wisconsin will make their home at Knoch Knolls Park for four weeks, preparing the site for next year’s park improvements.

“The goats happily eat our unwanted plants,” said Project Manager Peggy Pelkonen in a press release. “There are some areas at Knoch Knolls Park that are thick with invasive species and would take a lot of man power and machinery to clear. This is a natural way to control invasive species in woodlands with less pollution.”

The goats will graze within a five-acre area north of the West Branch of the DuPage River and west of the existing parking lot at Knoch Knolls Park, located at 336 Knoch Knolls Rd. in Naperville.

Park visitors may enjoy watching the goats, but may not touch the electric fence or the goats. The goats may have poison ivy on their fur and although it does not bother them, it can easily be transmitted to humans who touch them.

Clearing the five-acre area of buckthorn, poison ivy, cherry and other invasives will prepare the area for the expansion of the existing 9-hole disc golf course to an 18-hole course next spring. 

This project is part of the overall park improvements and construction of the District’s first nature center at Knoch Knolls Park. The project is progressing as scheduled, with the anticipated opening of the Knoch Knolls Nature Center in early fall 2014.

For more information about the Knoch Knolls Nature Center or about the Naperville Park District and its facilities and programs, please visit www.napervilleparks.org.

Submitted by the Naperville Park District