According to employees of the Birmingham, Ala., golf course, the beavers were rounded up “by government employees” in January because they destroy the vegetation that the endangered watercress darter lives in, and have also expanded the Roebuck Spring into the fairway of the No. 8 hole. Just five days after the beaver kill, hole No. 8 was still unplayable due to flooding.
In a story reminiscent of the golf classic “Caddyshack,” 17 beavers were killed at Roebuck Golf Course in Birmingham, Ala., in favor of preserving the watercress darter, an endangered fish species, as well as the eighth fairway, Alabama Media Group (AL.com) reported.
The Great Beaver Slaughter of 2017 at the historic golf course began in January. In addition to preserving the watercress darter, the beavers died to preserve the gently sloping fairway of Roebuck’s No. 8 par 4, which doglegs to the right and over a stream, a stream that beavers were using to turn the abutting fairway into a beaver pond, AL.com reported.
According to golf course employees, the prolific and resourceful beavers were rounded up in January with “pitchforks” and “by government employees.” This all happened after Birmingham City Council President Johnathan Austin visited the course, and produced a Facebook Live video demanding coverage by television news stations, AL.com reported.
“This is real news,” Austin said during his video. “This is coming to you live from Rogusta, where something needs to be done about this. This is beautiful city property. We are trying to preserve the property that we have, take care of the property we already have.”
Through the golf course runs a stream fed by Roebuck Spring, which is protected by the Endangered Species Act and managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. There are many prominent signs along the golf course that warn golfers and maintenance staffers of the importance of the spring, and there’s a $4 million reason for that, AL.com reported.
At the headwaters of Roebuck Spring, only a few hundred yards above the course, a picturesque beaver pond serves as an incubator for the rare and beautiful watercress darter, a colorful species of fish that naturally occurs in just four springs, all of which are in Jefferson County. The watercress darter was discovered in Bessemer in 1964, and the Roebuck Spring population of the tiny fish was found in the late 1970s, AL.com reported.
Throughout the years, and thanks to biologists, conservationists and, most importantly, the constant flow of cool, clean spring water, the watercress darters have survived despite all attempts by mankind to alter or destroy their habitat, AL.com reported.
In 2008, a supervisor for Birmingham Park and Recreation ordered the destruction of the beaver pond and the man-made levee it rested upon because two tennis courts were being flooded. The backhoe removed the dam and levee, and the sudden loss in habit drained the pond and killed about 12,000 of the watercress darter, AL.com reported.
Combined, the U.S. Department of Interior and the Alabama Department of Conservation sued the city for $4 million, and federal officials called the backhoe incident one of the largest fish kills in the history of the Endangered Species Act. The city settled most of the fines out of court after cooperating with U.S. Fish & Wildlife to preserve the habitat, but litigation associated with that lawsuit remains. Part of the deal affected the golf course and, by and by, multiple generations of unlucky beavers, AL.com reported.
In the past 10 years, the golf course maintenance crew hasn’t been allowed to step within 25 feet of the stream that runs through the course. Mowing, trimming, cutting and anything that might somehow affect the fish hasn’t been allowed. Maintenance staffers aren’t even allowed to clean trash out of the water, so they claim. An old shopping cart was lodged in the creek bed next to the No. 8 green for years. Thousands of plastic bottles litter the water, AL.com reported.
When trees started growing back along the banks of the golf course, the beavers did what beavers do: they moved in and claimed the territory as their own. “The golfers are all upset because they won’t cut the vegetation within so many feet of the creek, and they’re always hitting their balls into the vegetation out there,” said Michael Howell, the biologist who discovered, named and described watercress darters. “Well, I look at it as just another hazard.”
Over the past few years, the beavers have transformed a portion of the golf course into wetlands. Until recently, the beaver annex was mostly in an out-of-bounds area, but the beavers multiplied and went to work redirecting the flow of the golf course’s stretch of stream into the No. 8 fairway. A course maintenance worker said the stream has moved 35 to 40 feet over the past few years. At one point, before the beaver kill, the rodents engineered a large pond in the middle of the fairway with two small waterfalls cresting over the banks of the bend in the stream, AL.com reported.
For the watercress darter, it has all turned out OK. Protected by the government and fostered by the beavers, the darters moved downstream and began to thrive. The Roebuck Golf Course is now home to the single largest population of the watercress darter in Jefferson County, which also means in the world, AL.com reported.
“The beaver is not good for the darter because, the darter lives in the bottom of the stream in and amongst the heavy-growing aquatic mosses and the watercress and the eelgrass,” Howell said. “When beavers get in an area, they rip up all the vegetation off the bottom where the darters are living.”
The beavers naturally create the environment for the watercress darter to live, and then get blamed for also destroying that environment, at which point the beavers have to die so the watercress darter can live, said Howell.
“I guess the beavers caught the short end of the sticks, so to speak,” Howell said. “It’s the beavers that have broken the law, and not man.”
U.S. Fish & Wildlife said it did not kill the beavers, but the service has trained the city in proper beaver removal. The key: Take out the beavers without taking out the fish. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife’s lead recovery biologist for the watercress darter said he has never heard of pitchforks being used to “lethally trap” beavers. A representative for Birmingham Park and Recreation initially said his department didn’t know anything about the beaver kill, and since then hasn’t returned follow-up calls requesting more information, AL.com reported.
Together, it seems, the biologists, golfers and politicians outflanked the beavers. But only for a short while. Five days after the beaver kill, the water level at “Rogusta” flooded once again. There is no longer standing water on the No. 8 fairway, but it remains unplayable, AL.com reported.
“For all the news stations that want to report fake news, this is real news coming to you live right out here at the park, Rogusta,” Austin said. “We’ve got endangered species that we’re trying to save and protect.”
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.