This fall, a herd of goats and sheep will spend seven days grazing in The Meadoway in Scarborough as the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) researches whether livestock can help manage vegetation and protect meadow habitat along the sprawling urban green corridor.
It is not the city’s first experiment with four-legged landscape crews. The City of Toronto has also launched a prescribed goat grazing project at Don Valley Brick Works Park, bringing goats into the urban meadow as an alternative vegetation-management tool. Following the success of that initial project, the City moved to a yearly rotational grazing model, with goats returning to a designated section of the meadow each June. The 2026 grazing season at Brick Works has now been completed.
“The safety and welfare of the goats, the public and staff is of the utmost importance in the Prescribed Grazing Pilot Project,” the city stated in a news release when the program was first launched. “The goats are provided a secure enclosure, where they can graze in a herd, which is a natural behaviour. The goats are never used for purposes other than grazing and are always provided direct access to water and shelter.”