Why Goats Are Coming to Towar Woods This October

On Saturday, Oct. 17, goats will come to the end of Margate Lane in Haslett to browse invasive plants at Towar Woods Preserve. Meridian Township has been treating buckthorn, honeysuckle and autumn olive in this preserve for close to a decade. The date fits the plants. Buckthorn, honeysuckle and autumn olive often keep their leaves well into late fall, after the native woods around them have started to drop theirs. That makes October a good month to show what goats can do and a good month to see how far the invasive shrubs have spread. The free demonstration is also the most public look yet at long-running work in a preserve that most neighbors only see from the edge of their yards.

The last green leaves in the woods

Jared Harmon, executive director of the Mid-Michigan Land Conservancy, will bring the goats. In April 2024, Michigan State University Extension reported that he planned to bring some of his goats to parts of the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy's Bengel Wildlife Center in Bath to start controlling honeysuckle, buckthorn and autumn olive. In the same interview he explained why the season matters:

"I usually get them started after the spring flush, so generally May, and all the way through the fall. It depends on the weather, but even late fall can work because invasives like buckthorn, honeysuckle, and autumn olive often still have their leaves."

Spring has the same pattern in reverse. MSU Extension explains that invasive shrubs get a head start by leafing out early, then grow and spread quickly enough to crowd native shrubs out of natural areas. Leafing out early and staying green late gives these shrubs extra growing weeks at both ends of the year. In October, that also makes them easy to pick out.

Harmon also says goats are pickier than the old saying suggests. They prefer shrubs and vines, and they especially like oriental bittersweet, autumn olive, buckthorn species and even poison ivy. Some woodland plants are off the menu because they are poisonous to goats. His list includes black cherry, red maple and swallowworts, and he advises keeping goats away from oaks because of their tannins. So grazing a forest takes planning and supervision. It is not as simple as opening a gate.

A forest bought in ten pieces

Towar Woods was not bought in a single purchase. Meridian Township's Land Preservation Program started in 2000, backed by a millage voters approved that November. A preserve inventory in the Land Preservation Advisory Board's September 10, 2025 packet describes Towar as 124.8 acres of mixed deciduous forested wetlands. It sits in the northwest corner of the Township, along the northern edge of the Tower neighborhood and the western edge of Walnut Hills Country Club.

The inventory gives the acquisition period as 2004 through 2008, but its itemized list begins earlier and ends later:

The listed total is $2,351,561. The prices varied widely. The two Walnut Hills parcels add up to about 39.7 acres, roughly a third of the preserve, and cost $1.25 million, more than half of the total. The 24 acres from East Lansing Schools cost $118,000. An 8.06-acre DNR parcel cost $300. Because the Township acquired Towar one tract at a time over several years, today's preserve is a mix of former parcels, each with its own condition and history.

What years of herbicide and planting have done

Towar's inventory states a stewardship goal of reforesting the eastern part of the preserve with native hardwoods while containing the spread of buckthorn. As of that September 2025 report, the record looks like this:

• Pines: 2,000 red pines and 1,000 white pines planted in the preserve.
• Hardwoods: Hundreds of native trees protected with Blue-X tubes and fencing enclosures, including 300 planted in 2019, 200 in 2020 and 200 in 2022.
• Deer exclosure: One installed, with 20 to 30 native hardwoods planted inside it.
• Clearing: 6 acres of professional shrub clearing, mostly invasive shrubs.
• Herbicide: Regular treatments of buckthorn, honeysuckle and autumn olive across the entire preserve for the previous nine years, focused on the eastern portion.
• Brush hogging: Contract work on common buckthorn across 12 acres of the native tree plantation in 2022 and 2024.

The shrubs at the top of that list are the ones Harmon says his goats like. MSU Extension notes that the usual methods, pulling or cutting, often need herbicide afterward to keep the shrubs from sprouting again. Goats don't replace that follow-up. Harmon says grazing has to be repeated if no herbicide follows, but even one round of goats reduces how much herbicide is needed later. He also says goats can reach steep or hard-to-reach ground more easily than people or machines, with less impact on the land. A goat's four-chambered stomach destroys about 99% of the seeds it eats, so the goats are unlikely to spread the shrubs they are there to remove.

At Towar, that means the goats join brush hogs and herbicide as one more tool for protecting young hardwoods the Township has spent several planting seasons establishing. The event listing doesn't say which Towar plants the goats will browse. It describes the purpose as reducing dense stands of invasive plants that lower biodiversity in natural areas.

Township-wide fall work continues alongside the demonstration. Stewardship Coordinator Emma Campbell's September 9, 2026 staff report describes cut-stump removal of Asiatic bittersweet and tree of heaven, plus second foliar treatments for reed canary grass, phragmites, Japanese knotweed and black swallowwort. The same report announced that Mackena Rhadigan had joined the staff as Assistant Stewardship Coordinator.

Saturday morning on Margate Lane

The Township and the Conservancy both list the event. Their details agree on most points and differ on one.

• Date and start: Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, at 9:30 a.m.
• End time: The Township's event listing says noon. The Mid-Michigan Land Conservancy's page gives 11 a.m. for the demonstration. The extra hour probably covers the volunteer session that follows.
• Location: Towar Woods Preserve, 2948 Margate Lane, Haslett. The preserve is at the end of the street, and parking is on the street.
• Cost: Free and open to the public.
• Dogs: Not allowed.
• Staying on: The Meridian Conservation Corps invites anyone interested to stay after the demonstration and pull invasive plants.
• RSVP: The Township asks attendees to contact Emma Campbell at 517.897.3610 or [email protected].

The Township's preserve directory lists Towar as a natural area and wetland. It does not list trails or a parking lot, so waterproof boots make more sense than running shoes.

The same Saturday, the Holidays in Haslett Craft Show runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Haslett High School. Haslett Band Boosters sponsors the show, which focuses on handmade original work and supports the Haslett Public Schools band program. Since the goat demonstration ends by noon at the latest, both fit into one morning.

The other preserves this work reaches

Towar is one of several Township preserves with a Haslett listing. The directory also includes Cornell Wetland, Forest Grove, Glacial Ridge, Inter-Urban Wetland, Kuzma, Lake Lansing North, Nemoke, Pike Crossing, Tank Wetland, Tihart and Towner Wetland. The Township's 2025 stewardship summary counted 46 workdays and 36 invasive plant species managed across 15 preserves and 15 parks.

The goat morning is the only Conservation Corps event on the Township calendar for October and November. The regular schedule continues anyway. Stewardship Saturdays run from 9:30 a.m. to noon every other Saturday, year-round, and "Weekday Warriors" sessions meet every other Thursday. In September, one Thursday session was a native planting at Tihart Preserve in Haslett. The same staff report notes that MSU Extension Conservation Stewards participants are inventorying plant species in the prescribed burn areas at Lake Lansing North Preserve.

Neighbors who want to know what's growing behind their own property line can start with that schedule.

Some of the land around Haslett's preserves has a longer story than the roads beside it suggest. If you'd like to talk through the history of a property near Towar Woods, or anywhere else you own, Shelly Hall welcomes a private consultation.