Goats used to fight kudzu, the Asian 'vine that ate the South'

Summer is settling on Missionary Ridge overlooking this southeast Tennessee city. Swallows glide on the warm breeze rustling the hackberry trees, kudzu vines sprout along the hillside and the goats are back at work.

Chattanooga's goats have become unofficial city mascots since the Public Works Department decided last year to let them roam a city-owned section of the ridge to nibble the kudzu, the fast-growing vine that throttles the Southern landscape.

The goats and the project's tragicomic turns have created headlines, inspired a folk ballad and invoked more than their share of goat-themed chuckles.

"Usually, in dealing with this, you've got to get people past the laugh factor," said Jerry Jeansonne, a city forestry inspector and the program's self-described "goat dude."

Despite the humorous overtones, the program represents an environmentally friendly effort to grapple with a real problem in Chattanooga and the southeastern United States. Kudzu, which is native to Asia, was introduced in the United States in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, according to the U.S. Forest Service. It arrived in the South several years later, becoming a popular ornamental vine, then a forage and erosion-control crop. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the government paid farmers to plant it.

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