Sheep join BART's efforts to reduce wildfire risk

Bay Area Rapid Transit has replaced goats with sheep as part of the San Francisco-based transit agency's vegetation management program.

The sheep will eat grazing grasses and short roughage, while goats ate taller woody plants over the past few years, BART officials said in a press release. The animals used in the program — designed to reduce vegetation to mitigate wildfire hazards — are rotated every few years.

BART started the program with 100 goats; this year, it turned to 500 sheep, which started grazing near Berryessa/North San Jose Station and will work their way up a U-shaped path until they reach Pittsburg/Bay Point Station sometime in the next few months.

Sheep are just as efficient as goats when it comes to grazing dry, fire-prone vegetation, which "probably cuts the cost of fire mitigation in half," said BART Fence and Irrigation Technician Josh Soltero, who works with the animals.

Before animals were introduced to the vegetation management program six years ago, BART crews used heavy machinery and equipment to remove dried grasses, a process that could be disruptive to nearby neighborhoods. Grazing animals can reach areas that humans can't easily access and emit far less pollutants than machinery, BART officials said.