SIDNEY — A farmer will be charged with animal trespassing after his goats escaped onto Drummond Road on Wednesday evening, marking the third time the animals have gotten loose since Sunday and raising concerns for public safety.
Mark Gould, of Norman Road, will be issued a summons this week, animal control officer Chris Martinez said Thursday.
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The state Department of Transportation intends to repair the goats’ escape route – a hole in the fence that separates Interstate 95 from the farm property.
State officials had said it was repaired this week, but that was a department “miscommunication,” spokesman Ted Talbot said.
On Thursday afternoon, Gould was repairing a tractor in his driveway. Nearby, several cows grazed in a fenced-in area. He said no one had been in touch with him yet about the summons.
While there are fenced pens and a fenced barn, the goats generally roam free on the 65-acre farm, which has no fence around the permimeter of the property, at the end of a private road off Drummond Road.
“I try to train them so they are used to cars and other vehicles,” Gould said Thursday. “If I was really worried, I might do more.” Gould has 23 goats.
There is no state law that requires farmers to have fences for their animals. There are requirements, however, that farmers keep their animals from trespassing on roads and private property. Martinez also said he recommends that Gould put a fence around the property.
According to Martinez, about eight goats got loose on Drummond Road around 5:15 p.m. Wednesday.
Earlier this week, the goats were twice reported grazing on state property along Interstate 95, and as a result officials from the Maine Department of Transportation said it will repair a fence that separates the highway from Gould’s property.
There was still a hole in the fence Thursday afternoon. The department originally said Wednesday that the fence had been repaired, but said Thursday the repair hadn’t happened yet. The claim that it had been fixed was the result of a miscommunication within the department, Talbot said.
Crews will be on the site to evaluate and repair the fence in the next few days, he said.
“We are going out to look at the fence either this afternoon or tomorrow,” Talbot said Thursday. “All the reasoning is the same. The reason we are fixing it is not because it is an agricultural issue, but because there is a need to fix it in the interest of public safety.”
Rachel Ohm can be contacted at 612-2368, or at
rohm@centralmaine.com
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