Sheep As Urban Lawn Mowers Improve Environmental And Human Health

Sheepmowers provide environmentally-friendly and cost-effective urban landscape maintenance, whilst also reducing stress and promoting human mental health and well-being

© by GrrlScientist for Forbes

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Portrait of a domestic sheep with its tongue sticking out.

If you’re one of the lucky students at the University of California at Davis (UC Davis), then you may have met the sheepmowers. These are the university’s flock of domestic sheep that have been occupied as campus lawnmowers since 2021, when COVID-19 masking and social-distancing protocols were widely adopted, dramatically altering campus life. Besides keeping the lawns neatly trimmed, the sheep have proved to be a powerful mood boost for students, staff, faculty and visitors.

Sheepmowers boost campus morale

In addition to grazing on invasive weeds and keeping the grass short, the sheepmowers enrich the environment by depositing organic fertilizer at regular intervals on the landscapes where they graze. Sheepmowers also provide a lot of other environmental benefits, particularly reducing noise pollution and decreasing fossil fuel consumption by mechanical lawnmowers. But a recent study goes further than even those…