Echo

Grazing goats: the eco-friendly way to control weed growth

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Settler’s Ghost Golf Course in Barrie, Ontario is one of the first Canadian courses to use goats as groundskeepers. It is more eco-friendly and cost-efficient, reports the Toronto Star. The practice is common in parts of the U.S. but remains relatively unknown, said Brian Knox, supervising forester and founder of Eco-Goats, a Maryland-based company that works with industries, landowners and environmental groups to implement eco-friendly vegetation control. “I’ve noticed that goats are suddenly becoming cool throughout the U.S.,” Knox said. “People are rediscovering how sustainable they are as livestock.”

Echo recently reported how authorities on New York’s Staten Island are using 20 goats to control invasive phragmites plants that are choking out the native vegetation in two-acres of wetlands.

Echo

Universities need to be in the news business

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University-based news organizations can hit the trifecta of higher education.

They teach. They report news that otherwise is unreported. They experiment with how news is gathered, disseminated, conceived.

Sounds like education, outreach and research to me.

Echo

Compost dog poop with a D.I.Y. “dog waste digester”

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It may be a dirty job, but cleaning up pet waste is important. Some dog owners assume that because waste is natural, it can be left anywhere to decompose without risking health, said “dog waste digester” demonstrator Cathy Dueck. But dog waste carries more bacteria than human waste, posing a greater risk to human and environmental health, according to RAIN, a Green Communities Canada program that aims to end non-point source pollution. But dog owners, have no fear! This video from a Canadian environmental group illustrates how to take care of pet waste in a creative way.

Echo

Egg color gives clue to contaminant levels; may be environmental indicator

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The color of Great Lakes herring gull eggs indicate how contaminated they are,  according to a study in the Journal of Applied Ecology. And that may provide clues about the level of contamination in the surrounding environment. Researchers examined subtle differences in egg color. They found that the more contaminated eggs were less blue-green in color. Contaminants are eaten by birds and passed to their eggs.  The mother also passes on the blue-green and brown pigments found naturally in her body to her eggs, Daniel Hanley, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Guelph and an author on the study, told the Toronto Star.