Goatham 2025 – New York City’s Riverside Park Hosts the First Ever Competitive Eating Contest for Goats

Riverside Park in New York City is hosting “Goatham 2025: The Great Goat Graze-Off”, the first ever competitive eating contest for goats. The event is being overseen by George Shea of Major League Eating, who is known for the annual Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest at Nathan’s Hot Dogs in Coney Island, Brooklyn.

The festivities will be overseen by George Shea of Major League Eating, best known for hosting Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. A historic milestone, “The Great Goat Graze-Off” is the first-ever professional eating competition between goats.

The event takes place on July 12, 2025, from 11:00am to 1:30pm on the lawn north of Ten Mile Playground, at West 151st Street and the West Side Highway. You can RSVP for the free event on Eventbrite.

This summer, we are excited to welcome five tenacious, invasive plant-eating goats to face off in New York City’s most anticipated *NEW* competitive eating event, “The Great Goat Graze-Off”.

Almost every year since 2019, the city has brought in goats to “mow” the overgrown grass and invasive plants that’ve taken root along the slope. However, this is the first year that they’ve made it a contest. Five goats will compete.

Riverside Park’s goats will be baaaaaaaack for Goatham 2025, and they are hungrier than ever! This summer, we are excited to welcome five tenacious, invasive plant-eating goats to face off in New York City’s most anticipated *NEW* competitive eating event, “The Great Goat Graze-Off.”

The goats are a perfect solution, as that part of the park is quite difficult for mowers to reach.

They are able to traverse difficult, hard-to-reach places, and can also gulp down poison ivy without a second thought. This frees up human hands — and significant portions of time — to work on other components of restoration.

They also clear the area of weeds and invasive species so that new native trees can be planted.

Throughout the season, the goats continuously consume the weeds all the way down to the roots, which stunts the plants’ normal growth trajectory by making them start all over — only to be eaten again. After a few seasons of eating, the plants’ ability to grow will have been weakened, and perhaps eliminated altogether.

The Goats of 2024

via West Side Rag