Holy Goats
A Local Program Exploring the Edifying Relationship Between Goats & Humans
by Holly Madrigal
The sign almost stopped me in my tracks. It was hung across the gate of the beautiful old cemetery in Little River and read, “The Goats Are Coming!” Since sudden stops on Highway 1 are not recommended, I safely did a U-turn to make sure I read that right. Sure enough, the banner proudly declared that “Holy Goats—Your Fire Prevention Angels” would be starting at the site soon. This innovative business idea turns out to be a community collaboration with spiritual roots, practical leadership applications, and a visionary future.
The idea was initiated by Dr. John Gallo, Reverend Matthew Davis (Pastor Matt) of the Presbyterian Church in Mendocino Village, and Elisha Yager of Fort Bragg High School. It was fiscally sponsored by the Conception Coast Project, whose mission is to protect and restore the natural heritage and community resilience of our regions through science, planning, and community involvement. The group started a “Goat Fund Me” (yes, seriously) campaign to raise the seed money to launch the project.
Three beautiful dogs welcome me as I arrive at the Holy Goats coastal pen in Little River. “These are Anatolian shepherds,” explains Pastor Matt. “There are mountain lions and coyotes around here. One was spotted across the road from the cemetery. So these dogs keep our herd safe, but they are ok with people too.” The dogs take turns exploring the perimeter fence but keep returning to Pastor Matt and the herd as we talk. The owners of the Little River Inn, Marc and Cally Dym, heard about the goat project and offered a small piece of property just behind the gas station for the goats to live. The goats have eaten down the coyote brush and poison oak on the property, and they enjoy a panoramic ocean view while they do it.
Pastor Matt has been interested in the relationship between humans and flocks of goats for some time. Growing up near Tucson, Arizona, he was influenced by the Sanctuary Movement in the 1980s along the southern border, where political refugees from Nicaragua and Honduras fled war and violence to the U.S. Some of the activists involved in that movement became disillusioned, and a Quaker friend decided to help by pairing each person with a goat and sending them out into the Sonoran desert to meditate and “just be.” The spiritual solitude and absolute dependence on another being helped heal their spirits. Pastor Matt realized that collaboration with these animals could go beyond agriculture.
Later, when he was training at a little country church in New Jersey, a microfloral rose was taking over the state. “I suggested to my congregation that if we had a herd of goats, we could take this thing out. But they didn’t go for it,” Pastor Matt said. “Of course, now you have this whole industry of goats across the nation who are doing invasive species removal and fire prevention brush removal. I was here in Mendocino Village for a year or two when the awful wildfires hit Santa Rosa and Redwood Valley. I realized that it was a perfect time to start a project over here. At the same time, I was working to engage the youth of our community.”
The Holy Goats project was modeled after a similar program in Oakland, where the first official commercial goats-as-fire-prevention operation was started in the 1990s after the Oakland Hills Firestorm. A moveable 12 volt electric fence lets the goats browse in a particular area, eating down the vegetation that could otherwise become wildfire fuel. This method is much cheaper than having to remove fuels by hand, and goats can often access areas that are too steep or hard for humans to reach. The fifteen-strong Holy Goats herd is made up of different breeds including La Mancha, Nubian, and Swiss. Many were rescue goats from a high-end dairy in Napa, where they would have been put down after they were no longer of breeding age.
Pastor Matt wanted to provide leadership experiences for local kids (the human kind, not the goats). Often churches have fellowship groups, but Matt sensed that kids are over-programmed these days. Working with the elders of Mendocino Presbyterian, he started a leadership program. He connected with a local teacher, Jenni Windsor in Fort Bragg, through teaching kids classical guitar (you can’t make this up), and the two envisioned the Iona Project.
Matt explains, “Iona is a little island in Scotland that became the center of Celtic Christianity back in the 600s. It was redeveloped in the 1930s as a kind of justice center. Their themes are hospitality, peacemaking, gender justice, environmental justice, political activism—all themes where, if you are religious or not, you know what these things are.” So Matt and Jenni arranged for this diverse group of local kids to form a peer group that meets regularly and participate in discussions around these themes. The group hosts a few evening gatherings where they share with the community what they have learned. The incentive at the end of this program was a trip to Iona, Scotland in a pilgrimage type experience. “Some of these kids have never been out of the country. And this has been a huge leadership opportunity for them.”
This style of creative guidance is a hallmark of how Pastor Matt weaves his philosophy into his work. One goal of the Holy Goats program is to develop to the point where these local students, as part of the Iona project, can spend segments of time tending this flock.
Pastor Matt says, “We are tying this back into the Holy Goats project because, what I would really like to do is to create a national fellowship opportunity where we train students from San Francisco Seminary, Princeton, Yale, Duke, rabbinical schools and create an opportunity for students to learn through wilderness. One of the rotations, similar to a medical residency, is that the students would live with the goats for a time and immerse themselves in the local community.” Coming full circle, this harkens back to the idea of shepherding as spiritual practice.
Elisha Yager, who is a recent graduate from Fort Bragg High School, is a founding partner in Holy Goats. She grew up here and has been doing 4H since she was a little kid (pun intended). Elisha is the “ranger.” She knows the goats and trims their hooves, helps feed and care for them. The plan is to grow the number of contracts for brush clearing services to provide a modest income for her. The Mendocino Cemetery District has been collaborating with Holy Goats around helping with their brush maintenance needs. The community of Caspar has a significant, invasive gorse problem. Goats happen to love the thorny brush, so the Holy Goats project is in conversation to see if they can help.
Conversing with Pastor Matt is like a Renaissance immersion course. He is writing a grant to help fund this idea of the fellowship through experiencing wilderness, pulling in other groups to partner with, like the Noyo Center for Marine Science and B. Bryan Preserve in Point Arena. The latter is exploring starting an endangered black rhino breeding program. Matt would like to have the students visit and volunteer at these places to grow their environmental knowledge as well as to round out their spiritual practice. He is also applying for a large ecumenical grant that would help fund these multiple collaborations.
At the heart of this wide-ranging tapestry of community relationships is the peace-centered practice of tending a herd of goats. As Shasta, the elder Anatolian Shepherd, sits regally in the meadow watching the goats graze the hillside, a quiet descends. Looking out over the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean makes me think these goats, and their mission, may be holy after all.
For more information or to discuss hiring Holy Goats for your brush clearing or fire prevention projects, contact Pastor Matt at 20holygoats@gmail.com. To donate, checks can be written to Conception Coast Project with Holy Goats in the memo line: 1241 Willow St., Fort Bragg, CA 95437.
