Goats With an Appetite for Work : Land management: The herd has created much-needed firebreaks in the hills of Laguna and endear themselves to officials and residents.

The canyon slopes of Laguna Beach are a bit lonelier and quieter than they were a few weeks ago, when a herd of goats grazed them.

In little more than two months, the goats succeeded in clearing firebreaks through the coastal chaparral of Laguna Beach to protect nearby houses from potential brush fires during the summer dry spell. They were shipped earlier this month to Northern California.

“They did wonderfully well,” said Deputy Fire Chief Rich Dewberry. “We thought they wouldn’t be done until September, but they just breezed through there.”

Dewberry said the goats trimmed about 70% of the vegetation from 154 hillside acres.

The dramatic outcome of the chewing, Dewberry said, caused some onlookers to worry that the bare hillsides would create mudslide problems if the rains come next winter. But the goats left the plant roots that will hold down the soil, and already some of the foliage has begun to sprout again, he said.

The goats apparently found the work agreeable. Since the 1,200-head herd started its wanderings in Laguna Beach on April 21, it gave birth to about 200 kids. The youngsters, bleating and playfully butting heads, gave Laguna Beach residents a show that they found entertaining and often educational, Dewberry said.

“When people heard about the goats, they would make a special trip to see them and bring their children,” Dewberry said. “Most of the children who grow up in this day and age don’t see livestock. Some had never seen a goat before.”

Having chewed their way through the hills of Laguna Beach, most of the goats now have been redeployed to clear fuel breaks in regional parks near San Francisco.

But about 400 of the goats remain in Orange County. They are grazing coastal land that the Irvine Co. owns just north of Laguna Beach.

Peter Changala, the Irvine Co.’s director of agriculture, said that for many years the company has allowed cattle to roam its undeveloped land and thus naturally create firebreaks.

But after the company last year dedicated some land to Orange County for parks or open space as part of a coastal development plan, a stretch of grassland that the company owns near homes in Laguna Beach was cut off from the cattle’s grazing path, Changala said. The county has declined to allow cattle on its land, he added, because of environmental concerns.

Economically, he said, “it doesn’t make sense to truck the cattle” to the overgrown area. It turned out to be cheaper, he said, to use the goats that already had gained a worthy reputation in Laguna Beach.

While the goats are “serving an immediate need” for the Irvine Co., Changala said, it is as yet uncertain whether they will be used again on company land after they finish their nibbling in about a month. He said the goats have begun to slow down--possibly because they gorged themselves on Laguna Beach sage.

The goats’ new mission is to clear about a 300-foot-wide swath a little more than a mile long from Laguna Canyon Road to the boundaries of Crystal Cove State Park, Changala said.

Most probably, the goats will make a return engagement in Laguna Beach, said Dewberry. He said the city paid about $125,000 for the goat herding operation this summer, at a savings of more than $1 million over the alternative of hiring human work crews.

Dewberry said the savings would be even greater if the goats had a permanent wintering pasture in Orange County and not be trucked from their current base of operations in Northern California. He said the goat contractor, Kenneth McWilliam, is trying to determine if he would have enough work in the area to justify keeping some of the goats here year round.

Changala said the Irvine Co. is reviewing the possibility of leasing some pasture land to McWilliam for an Orange County operating base.

In any case, Laguna Beach officials say they expect the goats will play an ongoing role in the city’s fire prevention program.

City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said the goats’ work was well timed because “we are looking at a summer that probably poses the most wild land fire hazard we have had in years.”

Since the goats have vanished from Laguna Beach’s slopes, Dewberry said, the city has received numerous complaints from residents.

“They want them back. They liked watching them,” he said. “We tell them, hopefully, we will have them back in 18 months.”