Prospect Park Wildlife

Listen closely and throughout Prospect Park you’ll hear the gentle hum of butterflies, bees and other pollinators loving the park’s flowers and doing the important work of enabling plant fertilization and the production of seeds. Ever wondered about these creatures and the plants they love? We talked to Prospect Park Alliance’s Horticultural and Natural Resources Crew staff to learn about four beautiful spots you won’t want to miss on your next park stroll.

In 2016 and 2017, Prospect Park Alliance hired a few seasonal employees—the goats. These goats are not the first domesticated creatures kept in the park by any means.

Sheep
At the turn of the twentieth century, it was common practice to use sheep to maintain grass in urban parks. In Prospect Park, a flock of sheep grazed the Long Meadow, with lambs so tame that they ate from children’s palms. Prospect Park’s flock of sheep was a fixture into the 1930s, and served both aesthetic and practical purposes. As a design element, the sheep lent a fairy-tale air replete with tending shepherds and dogs, while they kept the Long Meadow cropped and fertilized.