HOWARD, Wis. (WFRV) – Meadowbrook Park in the Village of Howard is known to attract visitors, but there’s a particular animal that you don’t see every day roaming the fields.

Thanks to a donation by Cellcom, Meadowbrook Park is now home to a temporary herd of goats. These goats are helping transform two areas of the park that are currently infiltrated with invasive species.

To reduce the negative environmental impact of the project, officials opted to use goats as an initial measure to clear the space. The goats graze as a herd and are known to eat almost anything within the confines of a fenced-in area.

This includes invasive, hard-to-eliminate plants like Canada goldenrod and buckthorn that are present inside the confines of Meadowbrook Park.

“They will clear a lot of vegetation right down to the ground,” said Paul Evert, the Village of Howard’s Administrator. “We don’t have to go in with heavy machinery to do it so it prepares the land very well for planting different kinds of seeds to get a bigger variety of flowering plants.”

Cellcom is a long-time supporter of sustainability projects and implemented pollinator-friendly spaces at its corporate offices in Howard when the building was constructed in 1999.

“Cellcom is focused on reducing our negative impact on the environment and investing in projects in our communities that do the same. This project is in our backyard and has the support of local citizens and the village of Howard. We’re proud that were able to provide the funding to make it a reality,” said Mick O’Malley, director of sustainability at Cellcom.

Officials are hoping that once the goats clear out the area, they’ll be able to plant seeds for the winter and spring seasons.

“It’s a pretty sunny area here,” added Evert. “We may take down more trees and eventually clear a very nice sunny spot so we can have a spring-to-fall group of plants that flower to help our pollinators out.”

The goats are from Liberation Farmers in Almond, Wisconsin, and will be around until around Thursday before they move to a different patch of land near the pickleball and baseball fields to help clear out invasive species.