For the last month, there has been a buzz all around the Pasadena area: Goats are on the loose! A nonprofit, One Arroyo Foundation, has raised funds to develop an alternative plan to address fire control along the Arroyo Seco, one of my favorite walking haunts. The organization contracted Capra Environmental Services Corp to release 600 goats along the Arroyo Seco to devour leaves and weed as a fire preventative.

Last month, the goats were released further north from where I usually walk, but today I sighted them in the lower Arroyo area. A shepherd dog was guarding “the new Pasadena employees” (as the city officials have been saying) inside the electric fence constructed especially to contain them. I was tempted to touch the fence to check how effective white fences were against predators – after all, the arroyo is coyote turf.

And this evening, the same day that I encountered the goats, I received an alert that a mountain lion was sighted three times along Orange Grove…

But for today, seeing goats on the loose reminds me of urban and rural Pakistan, where goats are part of the landscape.