Alligators are a common sight on golf courses in Florida, but turtles are staking their claim on golf course bunkers farther north.
Four years ago, Thornhill (Ont.) Golf & Country Club expanded a small pond on the property to 1.3 acres in surface area for irrigation purposes. All turtles in the pond were relocated during construction, but they ultimately migrated back and the population has since “grown quite dramatically,” says Golf Course Superintendent Greg McFarlane.
Last year, when a snapping turtle laid a nest on the sloping edge of a bunker, out of golfers’ way, McFarlane simply roped off the area to protect the eggs. But this year, a turtle chose the middle of the bunker for her nest, and with a tournament quickly approaching, the club had to take action.
“After talking to the Algonquin Wildlife Research Station, we decided to relocate the eggs,” McFarlane says. “They’re sitting in a bucket of sand in our shop.” The nest was only intact for a day before it was moved, but McFarlane was assured that the mother would not revisit the nest to look for her young. “They’re not the greatest mothers,” he says.
A similar situation played out four years ago, when Thornhill’s crew relocated a nest of 25 eggs to a bucket in the maintenance shop, where 22 ultimately hatched and were released back into the pond.
This year, however, the nest contains 39 eggs, which could be too many turtles for an already well-populated pond. The club plans to contact Algonquin about relocating the turtles to another pond off-property.
Thornhill also took the opportunity to educate the public about environmental stewardship. “That’s something we continually do here,” McFarlane says. “And it’s not just turtles—we have other wildlife as well, including bee hives. But a lot of golfers were very concerned with the turtles’ safety, so that shows that the public is aware of them.”
Wildwood Golf Club in Allison Park, Pa., also had a turtle nest in one of its bunkers, but that story’s ending isn’t quite as happy. “Shortly after the eggs were laid, a fox or raccoon got into the nest and had a buffet,” says Superintendent Tom Fisher. “So there is not too much to report, outside of a ‘circle of life’ story.”
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