Barcelona recruits sheep, goats to fight wildfires

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It’s a country scene – sheep and goats graze placidly whereas a shepherd retains watch. But that is Barcelona’s largest public park, not the countryside.

Since April, Barcelona metropolis corridor has employed 290 sheep and goats to munch undergrowth on the Collserola National Park on the outskirts of Spain’s second-largest metropolis.

The goal of the pilot scheme is to cut back the danger of wildfires by clearing vegetation in an environmentally pleasant approach. It additionally helps educate the Mediterranean port metropolis’s 1.6 million residents concerning the countryside.

“The largest problem is re-educating folks about rural life,” stated Daniel Sanchez, one of many shepherds, as he took the animals out to graze.

The 36-year-old moved to Barcelona from Sant Llorenc Savall, a city some 50km (30 miles) additional inland, to take care of the herd. He sleeps in a shed within the park close to the sheep and goats.

The 8,200ha (20,262-acre) park is 22 instances larger than New York’s Central Park and eight instances bigger than the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.

Its viewing factors supply sweeping vistas of Barcelona, and mountaineering trails make it standard with joggers, cyclists and other people out for a stroll.

“Every yr it catches hearth,” stated Sergi Dominguez, a 52-year-old upkeep employee who was within the park strolling his canine.

High threat of wildfires

The sheep and goats “eat the scrub and that’s the smartest thing that may occur”, added Dominguez, pointing to the dry vegetation. He stated he hoped the flock would return subsequent yr.

The challenge ends this month (June). If it’s deemed a hit, the authorities might develop it to different inexperienced areas.

Ferran Paune, the biologist and livestock farming skilled in command of the challenge, stated the realm posed a “very excessive threat of wildfires”.

“We are in a Mediterranean zone. On prime of that, it is overcrowded, with many city areas and other people residing in woodland,” he added.

“This pure park may burn utterly in simply eight hours, which may trigger a really significant issue – folks needing to be evacuated or being injured.”

The goats and sheep seem to have tailored “completely” to the city park, Paune stated.

But Sanchez, who gave up a profession as a lighting technician a decade in the past to change into a shepherd, stated he was “getting drained” of the town noise and the night-time mild air pollution.

“I feel I hear a sheep screaming after which I realise it is really an ambulance siren,” he stated.

“Or I need to pay attention to the herd and there is a hospital helicopter coming in to land.” – AFP



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