Scientists recommend golf courses for wildlife sanctuaries
First, the article.
Golf courses could serve as important wildlife sanctuaries, scientists say.
“There are more than 17,000 golf courses in the United States, and approximately 70 percent of that land is not used for playing,” said Ray Semlitsch, a biologist at University of Missouri-Columbia. “These managed green spaces aren’t surrogates for protected land and ecosystems, but they can include suitable habitat for species native to the area. Golf courses could act as nature sanctuaries if managed properly.”
Semlitsch, along with Michelle Boone, an assistant professor at Miami University in Ohio and former University of Missouri graduate student, and J. Russell Bodie, senior scientist for Audubon International, have studied how best to carry the idea out. They suggest buffering aquatic habitats from chemical runoff, surrounding wetland areas with a strip of forest or natural grassland and creating a diversity of pond types that mimic natural wetlands.
Completely drying golf course ponds in the late summer or early fall would benefit amphibian populations and biodiversity, the researchers found in a study that will be published later this year in the journal Conservation Biology.
“Non-permanent wetlands are more natural than permanent wetlands,” Semlitsch said. “Most natural wetlands dry for some periods of time, and the species that live in them are well-adapted for this. The natural drying process benefits amphibians, and it releases nutrients from the soil. Maintaining permanent ponds actually harms biodiversity.”
The research was supported by the United States Golf Association and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Semlitsch makes it sound as if golf courses aren’t currently serving as “nature sanctuaries”. I would take issue with that thinking. Also, many (most? all?) new golf courses are already buffering wetlands and reclaiming water, meaning that little, if any, chemical runoff enters wetlands.
Second completely drying golf course ponds in late summer or early fall doesn’t seem like a feasible option in many cases. Many golf course ponds serve as irrigation – late summer and early fall for most parts of the country is a very dry and still very warm period. This also assumes that the ponds are man made and have an outlet structure that would allow the ponds to drain. Many of these ponds have fish in them as well – I’m not sure that draining a pond would be in their best interest.
If, when the course is constructed, it is built with constructed wetlands, then this wouldn’t be necessary – the wetlands could function as they naturally would. Man-made wetlands are a very effective water runoff treatment practice.
Some of these ideas might be feasible in certain regions of the country and then only in very particular cases on individual golf courses. But I don’t see the what carrot that these folks could dangle in front of a golf course owner that would entice them to take any of these steps. In many cases, this is going to require some fairly lengthy and expensive environmental permitting – just to drain a pond for frogs.
