O'Hare airport has started an interesting new project to maintain the fields of the airport, using goats, sheep, llamas and wild burros, according to NBC News. The animals, all of which live on grass diets, are used to mow the lawn at the airport.
The airport is one of the largest in the world and has been using the animals as part of their new environmental initiatives. The airport has acres of green roofs, among them a green roof on an air traffic control building. These roofs reduce the water runoff resulting from storms as well as lowering the urban heat island effect that results from the expansive concrete around the airport facilities.
O'Hare has also taken a piece of wooded land and provided it as the home for over one million bees that live in 28 beehives. The bees produce honey that is then sold in the airport terminals, as well as helping to replenish the bee population, which has been declining recently.
"Welcome to Project Herd!" Rosemarie Andolino, the head of the Department of Aviation, said, announcing the new effort to journalists.
One of the airport's sheep recently gave birth to a lamb, named O'Hare, after its home.
"He's doing great," Pinky Janota, who assists with managing the animals and has also donated some of them from her rescue shelter in Beecher, Illinois, located south of Chicago, said to NBC. "He was suckling on mom."
Living in an airport doesn't seem to faze O'Hare, who has adapted well since his birth.
"Planes flying overhead, he didn't flinch," Janota said. "Mom didn't move.
"Everybody's content," she continued.
O'Hare isn't the first airport to have a program on this type. San Francisco has a similar program at their airport, using a company called Goat R Us to clear brush in the spring to protect nearby homes from any potential brush fires. Atlanta and Seattle have airports with similar programs as well.
News coverage of the goats at the airport.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
