For several years now, we have successfully grazed sheep and donkeys at Devín Castle, and this year we managed to expand the pasture to the Devín castle Rock – which is located in the southern part, directly under the walls.
In places with an iconic view of the confluence of the Danube and Moravia, our herd of goats has been maintaining an extremely valuable rock steppe for several weeks. This is the only place in Slovakia where the critically endangered Austrian wormwood (Artemisia austriaca) can be found. In order to find out how this rare plant reacts to grazing, in cooperation with the Bratislava office of the Dunajské luhy Protected Landscape Area Administration, we also launched a small experiment, as part of which we fenced some individuals of wormwood against the pasture. However, goat grazing will definitely benefit the heat-tolerant grass communities here. Without the necessary care, these would be overgrown with trees, in the shade of which wormwood and many other rare light-loving species would not be able to survive for a long time.