When Raia Olsen, owner of Oahu Grazers, pulls up to the solar farm in Mililani and lets her flock of sheep out of the trailer, they know just what to do.
Once she opens the trailer gate, the white Dorper sheep make a beeline for the tasty grass and get straight to work doing what they do best: munching the vegetation down to a nub.
“We’ll yell out, ‘Foodie, foodie,’ and one will eventually jump out and then they all start piling out,” Olsen said. “Sometimes we’ll whistle when we move them on foot to different places. We use a certain whistle.”
Oahu Grazers is a small family-run business operated by Olsen and her husband, Daniel, on the North Shore, with current contracts to keep the grass down below the panels for several solar farms, including sites in Mililani and Waipio.
Those who work in wildfire management say these grazers, which can include sheep, goats and cattle, are just what Hawaii needs to help manage vast tracts of land overgrown with flammable vegetation.
“It’s absolutely a win-win,” said Mark Thorne, range and livestock specialist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “There’s very little downside to having a contract for grazing. You’re managing the vegetation, the fuel loads, and you’re creating an agricultural commodity.”
The challenge, however, is in growing awareness and support for the value of targeted, large-scale grazing in the isles and how best to boost this lesser-known niche of Hawaii’s livestock industry.
Thorne presented on the potential benefits of targeted grazing at the “Hawaii Wildfire Summit” held in late February in Kona, noting it would be more cost-effective than other methods of clearing dry vegetation. He said it’s less expensive than hiring workers to weed-whack an area for several weeks or than spraying costly herbicides, which comes with health and environmental concerns.
“We can use targeted grazing to do strip grazing, to create firebreaks or to create green zones between the woodlands and communities,” Thorne said.
This would be ideal in areas where the threat of wildfire is greatest, including the hills above Lahaina in West Maui, in Kawaihae on Hawaii island and in the wildlands above most leeward communities and alongside highways where dry grasses are often ignited.
While there are a handful of ranchers who provide grazing services, the market in Hawaii is still under development.
Grasses abound
More than a year after the August 2023 wildfires in Lahaina and Upcountry Maui, the hills throughout Hawaii are still carpeted with flammable grasses. Clay Trauernicht, UH Manoa ecosystem fire scientist, has for years warned of the growing expanses of fire-prone grasses and brush that provide fuel for wildfires, once estimating the total at 1 million acres statewide.
Much attention has been given to the problem since the Maui wildfires, but action to prevent these grasses from becoming fuel for fires is still a work in progress.
Trauernicht, too, believes in the potential power of goats and sheep to do this work.
“It’s a no-brainer, especially for near-term and large-scale fuels reduction,” he said. “These animals are the best tools for it. … We should be doing it everywhere we can.”
It just so happens that sheep and goats love feasting on some of the very same vegetation — buffelgrass and guinea grass — that the Hawaii Invasive Species Council has labeled as among the most invasive, habitat-modifying and potentially fire-promoting grasses in the Hawaiian Islands.
Goats and sheep are also good at stripping down woody shrubbery, Trauernicht said, including invasive haole koa, which poses a fire hazard because it potentially creates ember showers.
Thorne estimated that 750,000 of the 1 million acres of grasslands in Hawaii are actually in livestock production, while the remaining 250,000 acres are former sugar and pineapple lands that remain fallow.
Grazing is commonly used in Mediterranean countries and in other U.S. states, including California, Nevada and Utah. In Los Angeles, Thorne said, goats have been used to chomp down the chaparral zone of shrubs and brush that dry out in the summer to help prevent fires.
There is currently not enough incentive for Hawaii livestock ranchers to offer grazing in addition to their core business, he said, but demand for the service is growing.
Momentum may also be growing with the introduction of the bipartisan “Wildfire Resilience Through Grazing Research Act.” U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, joined other senators in introducing the measure in February to promote research on grazing and how it can support fuels reduction, wildfire mitigation and post-fire recovery.
The legislation would support research of grazing for wildfire mitigation at land grant universities such as UH Manoa, the University of California, and Kansas State and Oklahoma State universities.
Goats in action
Mark Crivello, owner of 3C Goat Grazing on Hawaii island, has observed hundreds of his goats in action for 15 years. He says he’s had contracts to provide the service for Hawaii County, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Hawaii National Guard.
The jobs have varied from deploying his goats to clear a half-acre of overgrown weeds by soccer fields in Hilo to clearing vegetation near Hilo International Airport and at cultural sites such as Laaloa and Puapuaa Point. But the work isn’t consistent year-round.
Goats can reach steep terrain and “go where machines and humans can’t go,” he said.
Crivello, formerly a heavy equipment operator, promised his daughter a pet goat when she was a toddler and then fell in love with the animals. He has a no-kill policy, letting them live out their retirement years because he considers them family.
“This is my passion,” he said. “I live this life, breathe this life. Wherever my goats go, I live with them.”
Crivello believes the animals can even help with forest conservation and preventing grass-fire cycles.
Goats and sheep are ungulates, or hooved animals, and in the conservation world they are considered invasive and destructive. Fences are erected to keep feral ungulates out of sensitive areas and protect native plants and animals.
But Crivello is convinced that domestic goats and sheep — if managed the right way — can also help with conservation goals. In a past project for DLNR, he used sheep, which he also owns, to help remove invasive grasses while leaving native wiliwili trees alone.
The whole concept of targeted grazing means setting out the right grazers in the right place at the right time, and Crivello says he knows just how to do that.
Getting started
Targeted grazing is not as simple as just releasing the animals onto a site; it takes equipment, skills and experience. Olsen started with raising cattle but got into solar grazing and now has a little over 1,000 sheep, along with a few goats.
Oahu Grazers has had contracts with the solar energy companies since 2019 and hopes to expand services to include more targeted grazing for wildfire prevention. Olsen is excited about the possibility of working with Waialae Iki, a new Firewise community, to clear out a parcel of overgrown weeds to help create a fuel break.
Sheep are ideal for grasses at solar sites, as they graze to the ground, she said, while goats are browsers that consume more of the top portions of vegetation and take down haole koa by “girdling” them and eating the bark.
Having a combination of the two — and sometimes cattle — are ideal for tackling various projects, according to Olsen. Over time she was able to get equipment, including portable corrals to load onto the trailer, and electric fences.
Prices for a job will vary, she said, depending on the number of acres and how much fencing and preparation are required, as well as other factors such as water accessibility.
One benefit of sheep grazing, Olsen said, is that their hooves aerate the soil so that when it rains, more water can be absorbed into the ground. And when they graze, they also poop, which is beneficial as fertilizer.
“With the amount of weed whacking and tree trimming that goes on, it’s clear this can be done with sheep and goats,” she said.
