Upper Merion tries out goats to keep vines in check at Bob White Park

Upper Merion is experimenting with a high-appetite, low-cost way to rid Bob White Park of invasive vines.

Goats. Two of them.

Township Park and Recreation Department and Public Works staffers have put their horns together and believe the goats will gobble the intruders, which have overrun 10 acres of parkland. The vines include Oriental bittersweet, poison ivy, grape, Japanese honeysuckle, mile-a-minute, and greenbrier.

"If successful, the program will help the township maintain the natural beauty of parks in an environmentally friendly and cost-efficient manner," the township's deadpan spokesman, Ed Higgins, said Thursday.

The chomping will start in mid-September after crews use machinery to gouge paths into the affected areas of the park, at Bob White and Falcon Roads in King of Prussia.

The goats will commute each day from the township-owned Nor-View Farm. Once at work, they'll be confined to a 200-square-foot area rimmed by an electric fence.

In a week, township crews will gauge the pair's prowess to see whether "goats offer a viable alternative" to mowers run by humans.

In two weeks, a grass-cropping expert will report to the Park and Recreation Board and the Board of Supervisors. And supervisors will decide whether the goats leave green-enough hoof prints on the environment.