|
When properly sited, designed, constructed, and managed, golf courses can be an environmental asset to a community. By their very nature, golf courses can provide significant open space and opportunities to provide needed wildlife habitat in increasingly urbanized communities across North America. With nearly 80% of all of the 15,000-plus golf courses in the United States located in urban or suburban areas, opportunities abound for golf courses to provide ecosystem services such as storm water retention, runoff filtration, urban wildlife habitat, wildlife corridors, heat island effect reduction, etc. Like most other businesses, golf courses must also work to address the environmental challenges of water use, water quality, habitat and biodiversity loss, chemical use, waste, energy use, etc.
Through Audubon International’s environmental education programs and other programs (see Find an “Eco-Friendly” Golf Course), golf course owners, managers, and superintendents are doing their part to help protect and sustain the natural environment in their communities. Below are just a few ways golf courses are lending a hand--in this case, to wildlife in and around their properties. Please visit Audubon International’s Success Stories webpage for more information and case studies of the ways golf courses are working to help protect and sustain the environment. Likewise, a PowerPoint presentation on Audubon International's Managed Lands Survey 2002-2003 is available by clicking here.
Great Results: Wildlife and Wildlife Habitat
Audubon International works with golf courses to help them provide habitat for a variety of wildlife species and preserve our rich natural heritage by protecting existing habitats and landscaping primarily with native plants. Collaborative projects between members and local resource agencies or wildlife organizations are encouraged. The result is tens of thousands of acres of natural habitats and hundreds of species of birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and other wildlife conserved on golf courses across North America and, increasingly, around the world. The following great results are just a small sample of what golf courses are achieving.
Golf course natural areas:
-
Preserve golf’s heritage as a sport played amidst the challenges of nature
-
Create interest and add to the overall enjoyment of the game
-
Provide needed food, shelter, and water for a diversity of wildlife species
-
Result in financial and labor savings
-
Enable golf courses to serve as valuable natural assets within their local communities
Hole-in-the-Wall Golf Club, Naples Florida
Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program (ACSP) Golf Member since 1992; Certified since 1993
Club members and staff erected an osprey platform at the course nearly 10 years ago, but for years it remained unoccupied. Last summer, maintenance staff reworked the platform, adding two perches and raising the sides so that it would more easily contain a nest and prevent it from blowing off in a storm. Audubon Steward Fred Yarrington reports that after 10 years of waiting, a pair of osprey successfully raised two young this past spring. “It's been a wonderful event,” says Yarrington, “and without the ACSP, our membership might not have had the pleasure of watching two healthy birds develop.”
Aspen Glen Club, Carbondale, Colorado
ACSP Golf Member since 1997; Certified since 2001
Putting up nest boxes is often among the first projects ACSP participants undertake. But monitoring and cleaning the boxes sometimes falls to the bottom of the project list for busy golf course staff. After six years, nest boxes at the Aspen Glen Club were in need of some home maintenance. Enter Jared Abshire, an enthusiastic scout looking to earn his Eagle Scout badge. Jared organized 14 scouts to restore old boxes, build and put up ten new ones, and set up a monitoring program to ensure the project's on going success. In total, the scouts volunteered 58 hours and provided an invaluable service to the club.
LaPlaya Golf Club, Naples, Florida
ACSP Golf Member since 2002
Since joining the ACSP in 2002, LaPlaya Golf Club, led by Superintendent Brian Beckner and assisted by local avian expert George McBath, has established a variety of nesting structures on the 155-acre golf course. Eastern Bluebirds, Great Crested Flycatchers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Carolina Wrens, Downy Woodpeckers, and Purple Martins are among the birds that have moved in. But this year, Beckner and his crew were especially pleased to see Eastern Screech Owls take up residence for the first time in a nesting cylinder placed in a pine scrub habitat and twelve Wood Ducks fledged from nest boxes in the course’s lakes. Above, the mother owl huddles over her three youngsters, which fledged successfully not long after Beckner took the photo.
Mesquite Grove Golf Course, Dyess AFB, Texas
ACSP Golf Member since 2000; Certified since 2000
In the past five years, superintendent Danny Walters, along with Kim Walton, Natural Resources Manager, and the crew at Mesquite Grove have converted more than 15 acres of formerly managed turfgrass into natural habitat areas. The taller grasses, along with preexisting woods, meadows, and lakes provide food and shelter for more than 100 species of birds, 14 mammals, and 18 species of reptiles and amphibians. Among the menagerie is the largest member of the tree squirrel group—the fox squirrel. Fox squirrels prefer woodland borders, where they feed on nuts, seeds, and fruit. This one laid claim to one of the course’s 30 nest boxes. Fox squirrels generally have two litters of three to five young each year.
Stone Creek Golf Club, Oregon City, Oregon
ACSP Golf Member since 2004
American Kestrels are found throughout much of the United States and Canada, preferring open habitat areas where they can hunt for grasshoppers and other insects. This trio of juvenile kestrels was caught on film at the base of dead fir tree that contains their nesting cavity at Stone Creek Golf Club. The birds are ready to fly after a month of parental care in the nest. Credit for providing good habitat for kestrels and other wildlife is due to Superintendent David Phipps and his crew, who maintain the course in a natural style, with 21 acres of grassland and 30 acres of wooded habitats and natural pond edges complimenting more manicured in-play golfing areas.
Old Greenwood, Truckee, California
Gold Signature Member since 2002; Certification pending final audit scheduled for July 2005
Extraordinary measures were all in a days work for Old Greenwood’s Golf Course Superintendent Michael Cornette (on ladder), Director of Agronomy Joel Blaker, CGCS (top), and Randy Mezger of AMX Excavation (lower right) attempting to save a nesting cavity for resident Lewis’s Woodpeckers. The Jeffrey pine snag used by the woodpeckers was formerly located in a lot slated for residential development on the property. Staff relocated the dead tree to a conservation area onsite in hopes of drawing the woodpeckers away from development activity. Lewis’s Woodpecker (named for Merewether Lewis who first described it in 1805) is considered to be of high conservation importance because of its small and patchy distribution due to habitat degradation and loss of dead trees suitable for nesting and storing acorns and nuts.
Glendale Country Club, Bellevue, Washington
ACSP Golf Member since 1991; Certified since 1998
Two salmon spawning streams cross the length of Glendale Country Club, located in a suburb of Seattle, and provide the primary spawning habitat for the entire reach of each stream. The course has been involved in the ACSP for Golf Courses since its inception in 1991, and achieved certification in 1998, due in part to several unique partnerships it has forged and its work to restore salmon to Kelsey Creek. Glendale superintendent Steve Kealy has been very active in the City of Bellevue’s Stream Team program since 1989. Kealy has completed salmon restoration and habitat improvement projects on the golf course and adjacent properties, including clearing overgrown sections of the stream channel, bank stabilization, and improving the riparian corridor. In addition, Glendale Country Club sponsors a “salmon in the classroom” program at Odle Middle School. Each year, students raise Coho salmon, supplied by a local Washington State hatchery, and release them into Kelsey Creek at Glendale Country Club. The salmon project spawns a lasting sense among the students that getting involved personally in environmental stewardship matters.
Frenchman's Reserve, Palm Beach Garden's, Florida
ACSP Golf Member since 2002; Certified since 2003
Frenchman’s Reserve golf course was on the verge of losing its Florida Rosemary population when Elizabeth Gilmour, landscape superintendent, noticed the problem and quickly involved the Frenchman’s Reserve community in the endangered plant’s protection. The golf course educated employees, members, and residents about Florida Rosemary and promoted the importance of its survival. The staff designated certain areas on the course as “Environmentally Sensitive” and prohibited entry. Because Florida Rosemary thrives in well-drained, dry sandy soils, Gilmour’s staff cut irrigation to several non-play areas to provide better growing conditions. The water conservation measures also resulted in savings of over $1,500 dollars in water costs.
|
