A crew of goats brought in to devour invasive plants at a popular park in Oregon's state capital, Salem, have been fired because they ate indiscriminately, cost nearly five times as much as human landscapers and smelled far worse, a city official said on Friday. The 75 billy and nanny goats were supposed to eat Armenian blackberry and English ivy and other invasive plants choking native vegetation across the 9.1-acre Minto-Brown Island Park, the city's largest, in a pilot program last fall. The goats "had a barnyard aroma" and cost $20,719, including $4,203 for drinking water and a workers' toilet, and $2,560 for monitoring, city staff said in a report to the city council this week.

More...