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Date: 7/5/2023
WESTFIELD — Anthony Witman, owner of Mr. Whipy’s Golf Acres, came before the Westfield Conservation Commission on June 27 to ask for permission to bring two goats to the business to curtail invasive plants on the 317 Union St. property.
Witman said he has been cutting bittersweet vines around the pond in the rear of the property, which also has a lot of invasive multiflora rose bushes. Witman has six Boer goats at his home in South Hadley, and would like to bring two of them, Samson and Enoch, to eat the weeds on his business property. The goats would be contained in a temporary pen with an electric fence.
He said he needed the commission’s permission because the area is a wetland in a lower flood plain. Invasives in the area include multiflora rose, Asian honeysuckle, Oriental bittersweet, Virginia creeper and poison ivy. He said the goats would eat them down to the twig, to reduce them in size.
Witman said it would take two to three weeks to clear an area of about 5,000 square feet, after which they would have to be moved. He said he would like to pen them up to the water’s edge. Commissioners continued the request in order to schedule a site visit.
He said if allowed, he will put the goats down by the go-kart track, where people will be able to see them but not pet or feed them, as the electric fence will separate them from visitors.
“They’ll be working goats,” he said, though he admits he loves them as pets.