Goats have returned to the Issaquah Highlands to clean up dry growth on the area’s steep hillsides, with nothing but the power of their prodigious appetites.

Since 2009, the Issaquah Highlands Community Association has rented goats as an environmentally friendly means of managing landscape overgrowth in neighborhoods. The sure-footed animals are able to easily manage sharply sloped terrain and their use precludes fossil fuel use that would come with a mechanical mower.

The Community Association has hired Rent-A-Ruminant and Healing Hooves to provide the goats.

In 2010, Rent-A-Ruminant and company owner Tammy Dunakin were featured on “People Destroying America,” a tongue-in-cheek segment on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” The segment included footage of Rent-A-Ruminant’s work on the Issaquah Highlands.

On Monday, the goats were stationed near Daphne Park and Dahlia Park. They will relocate once a week, an employee of the Community Association said.