City park sends in 24 GOATS to eat overgrown weeds and shrubs

Park officials have called upon 24 hungry goats to chew their way through two acres of overgrown green area.

The animals will be eliminating intrusive plants, such as poison ivy and mugwort, at New York City's Riverside Park.

The goats were transferred from a farm around 100 miles away in Rhinebeck, New York, at the request of Riverside Park Conservancy.

Larry Cihanek, a goat handler, was enthusiastic about the new plan.

He told CBS News : "The goats actually help bring back a bigger variety of plants"

Community members and volunteers greeted the goats when the arrive for the new "Goatham" initiative.

Every day, goats eat almost 25% of their body weight in shrubbery alone, creating a green way to cultivate some of the far-flung, precipitous regions of the park.

President of Riverside Park Conservancy and CEO Dan Garodnick said: "For them this is like an all-you-can-eat buffet. It's the ultimate farm to table.

"They especially love feasting on invasive plant species like Japanese knotweed and poison ivy that choke and kill native plants."

The scheme has assigned an enclosed area for the animals to ramble around from May 21 to August 30.