Snap judgments

Their tails and feet leave artistic imprints in sand and dew, a 5:30 a.m. sign an animal considered mythical in some places and exotic in others roamed a golf course.

They aren’t nocturnal. Or shunners of the environmental spotlight. Or as ruthless as those of us who don’t live among them think. Yet when an alligator crosses a golf course, it’s a noteworthy event, no matter how often it happens at a facility.

“You still get a kick out of seeing them,” says Brian McMinn, superintendent at The Atchafalaya at Idlewild in Patterson, La. “I have been in Louisiana for 15 years. You see them all the time, but the novelty never wears off.”

The novelty is a reality on golf courses in the Southeast and Gulf Coast. No recent studies on the American alligator population have been conducted, but University of Florida biologist and alligator expert Dr. Kent Vliet estimates the population rests between 4.5 million and 5 million. The American alligator range extends from northern parts of North Carolina to east Texas.

Louisiana and Florida are alligator havens. Louisiana’s alligator population approaches 2 million, according to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Florida’s population rests between 1.25 million and 1.5 million, according to Vliet. Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Texas and Mississippi also boast significant populations. The numbers are encouraging considering the American alligator was included in the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973. The Fish and Wildlife Service removed the animal from the endangered species list in 1987.

Co-existing with alligators represents part of life on southern golf courses, and superintendents often serve as stewards when managing the animals at their facilities.

“You have people that at probably one time or another thought of alligators as these vicious creatures that were going to gobble them up and eat them and chase them around the course,” says Kyle Sweet, superintendent at The Sanctuary Golf Club on Sanibel Island, Fla. “They see us out on the golf course helping to manage them instead of getting rid of them or having a situation that is dangerous for the members.

“Most of our people get how important it is to co-exist. Not all, but most. Enough that it makes a difference in my satisfaction of the job to know that I’m doing the right thing for both the alligators and the members. I’m supposed to be the manager of the golf course, and if that means wildlife or if that means weeds, that is the role that we have taken.”

Paul Bradley, like Sweet, embraces the role as his course’s alligator advocate. Bradley is the superintendent at Bonita Bay Club in Bonita Bay, Fla., where alligator sightings are frequent at the 2,500-acre property’s three golf courses. “We are open every day for golf, so golfers are interacting every day with gators,” he says.

Bradley strives for positive interactions. Florida’s abundant alligator population creates an unforgiving situation for nuisance alligators, which are animals measuring at least four feet and potentially posing a threat to people, pets or property. More than 8,000 nuisance alligators were removed and killed in Florida in 2013, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conversation Commission.

“The last thing I want is to have a gator removed because it’s in the way of a golfer,” Bradley says. “We are here on that natural property, so we are invading their space. I want to do as much for them, so they can continue to live throughout their lives. That’s exactly how I want to be. It’s very fulfilling to see it work.”

Statistically, alligators aren’t posing major threats to maintenance workers or golfers. An 83-year-old woman was killed by an 8-foot alligator while walking near a lagoon in a Georgia golf course community in 2007. But there has never been a documented maintenance worker or golfer death caused by an alligator attack on a golf course in the U.S. Florida had 12 reported alligator bites in 2013 and the state hasn’t reported an alligator-related fatality since 2007. Georgia is the only other state to have a documented death caused by an alligator attack. South Carolina, home to more than 100,000 alligators, has only 11 reported alligator bites since 1948, according to the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.

Jay Butfiloski, alligator program coordinator for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, says alligators don’t view humans in upright positions as prey because normal human behavior and posture contrasts the activity of animals that are regular parts of alligator diets such as fish, turtles, birds and small mammals. “You’re upright, you’re six-foot tall,” he says. “You’re not something that they would normally see and think, ‘That looks like a pretty good meal.’ Size-wise it just doesn’t fit.”
 

No feeding, please

Still, overlooking alligators or treating them like pets on a golf course is foolish. Workers who must perform tasks in crouched positions are vulnerable to attacks, especially in areas where heavy vegetation acts as a barrier between water and land. The vulnerability increases when food is involved.

On a typical day, each member of TPC Louisiana superintendent Robb Arnold’s crew encounters one or two alligators. Most sightings are in mornings or evenings, and occur when alligators are crossing between lakes. Alligators are cultural icons in parts of Louisiana, and the state’s population has increased by more than 1.5 million in the last 50 years, so most of Arnold’s workers are accustomed to seeing them. That doesn’t stop Arnold from reinforcing two points.

“We tell them we don’t feed the gators,” Arnold says. “Rule No. 2 is be cautious when you are around areas like banks. I have never seen one jump out of the water and grab somebody, but I don’t want to take that chance. Basically, don’t feed them and respect their environment.”

Louisiana’s alligator nesting season, which lasts from June to mid-July, can be a perilous period. Atchafalaya at Idlewild, located near the Atchafalaya Basin, the country’s largest wetland swamp, provides the proper elements for a successful hatch. “When it’s breeding season and egg-laying season, we know what areas to avoid and we just don’t go into those areas,” McMinn says. “Some females can be pretty aggressive.”

Unless alligators become a nuisance toward golfers and workers, McMinn says they are left free to bask along the course’s lakes. Alligators are cold-blooded, meaning they can’t regulate their own body temperatures. Basking in the sun represents a cooling tactic. The alligators roaming Atchafalaya at Idlewild travel between ponds, and are most visible to maintenance workers and golfers in the morning, although they can be seen basking during afternoons in winter months.

The Sanctuary finds itself in a unique environment, with the course resting inside the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. Sweet says members of his staff encounter three or four alligators during an average shift. “Maintenance staffs are kind of the front line,” he says. “They are the ones seeing them all the time.”

To educate employees and members about alligators on Sanibel Island, The Sanctuary invited Vliet to the club. The 2004 death of a 54-year-old woman attacked by an alligator while landscaping on the island sparked Vliet’s visit. The woman wasn’t working at The Sanctuary, but the incident increased interest in human-alligator interactions on Sanibel Island.

“Anytime landscapers are working near the water, if they are doing anything like planting, pruning or pulling weeds, it creates dangerous circumstances for them,” Vliet says. “People tend to be in one place for an extended period of time, they are very often crouched down and they are tugging on plants and waving things around, so they are being fairly conspicuous.”

Beaches, platforms and signs

With help from Vliet, The Sanctuary developed an alligator management program, which led to Sweet and his staff constructing “Gator Beach,” a gently sloping area free of thick vegetation. The beach took one 8-hour shift to build and a 24-inch retaining wall prevents alligators from leaving the beach and entering the fairway. The area increases worker and golfer safety because it prevents alligators from basking in scraggly areas where they might not be visible. “Lo and behold, we put the gator beach out there and that’s where the gators went,” Sweet says.

At Bonita Bay, Bradley created an alligator basking platform in the middle of a lake. Bradley constructed the platform by using triple-rinsed, 30-gallon drums that were sealed up as a floating base. Bradley connected the drums with 2x4 boards and built a wooden ramp allowing alligators to easily climb onto the platform. Birds immediately landed on the platforms because it offered an ideal spot to scout fish. Painting it black helped retain heat, thus increasing alligator activity on the structures.

“You would see golfers driving around the bank and that would frighten the alligators back into the water,” Bradley says. “I wanted to make sure we had a healthy divide of letting them live in a natural environment where we are able to golf.”

When Sweet gives wildlife tours of The Sanctuary, he takes visitors to “Gator Beach,” where they can observe alligators as large as 10 feet from a safe distance. Experts recommend staying within 60 feet of an adult alligator. The Sanctuary also posts caution signs in areas frequently occupied by alligators. “People here have done a really good job of enjoying from a distance,” Sweet says. “That’s what we say: View from a distance.”

Jekyll Island, a 63-hole facility in Georgia, places safety stickers in golf carts and posts signage at the starter’s hut urging golfers to avoid feeding and approaching alligators. Female alligators are especially pugnacious during nesting season, and Vliet suggests putting little red caution flags and temporary fencing along cart paths and low spots to alert workers and golfers of potentially aggressive animals lurking. To protect golfers, Butfiloski recommends clearly communicating local rules such as penalty-free drops along ponds and lakes. Designing steep banks along lakes touching fairways is another tactic to limit human-alligator interaction, Butfiloski says.

Besides occasional overnight treks through bunkers that require raking, alligators, unlike groundhogs and geese, pose few maintenance challenges. Vliet says alligators are “pretty frightened” by large objects that move and make a lot of noise such as mowers and tractors. Retreating is a common reaction when an alligator sees an upright human.

Alligators are more difficult to handle underwater. Divers who recover golf balls from lakes can place themselves in vulnerable positions because alligators can’t see any better beneath water than humans, according to Vliet. “That’s really a dangerous situation,” Vliet says. A man was bitten on the left arm by an alligator while diving for golf balls at Bonaventure Country Club in Weston, Fla., this past August. The same man was also attacked in 2006.

Painful encounters with alligators, fortunately, are exceptions on golf courses. “Most of the time, if you go up to them, they will go into the water,” Bradley says. “So they have a fear of us. It’s a general respect. If you respect them, they will respect you. You can live in harmony.”

Guy Cipriano is GCI’s assistant editor.