Squirrels may spur lifting of shooting ban
Published: June 20, 2003
Ground squirrels occupy the edge of the driving range at the Crooked River Ranch golf course on Thursday. The rodents have become a growing problem as they feast on the grass and create a potentially dangerous maze of holes just under the surface of the course's grounds.
Rob Kerr / The Bulletin
By Julia Lyon
The Bulletin
CROOKED RIVER RANCH — Some golfers here think the squirrels that scamper over the greens are just adorable. Every year more of them seem to scatter as golf carts trundle by.
But Richard Jensen, the Crooked River Ranch Golf Course superintendent, knows the dark side of the Belding ground squirrel population explosion. The small brownish-gray animals are feasting on the grass and staking out prime real estate underground. Some golfers worry that players could hurt themselves by stepping in a hole.
"I would really hate to see what the subsurface looks like around here," Jensen said while driving through the course recently. "I'm sure it's just a maze of tunnels."
This isn't another "Caddyshack," but Jensen has worked to shrink the squirrel population. He's tried pellet guns, smoke bombs and flushing the holes with water.
Nothing's stopped the squirrels, which enjoy taking a break and sitting straight up. Jensen doesn't know what to do. He guesses he's spent about $2,500, not including labor, trying to fight back. That money included the cost of visits by two trappers, bait and a pellet gun.
He's not alone in his frustration. The president of the Ranch board of directors, Vern Bowers, recently told the Jefferson County Commission that some residents wanted a short-term exemption from the restriction against shooting firearms on the Ranch so they could turn the animals into targets.
The commission responded by discussing alternatives. Commissioner Bill Bellamy suggested he talk to seed companies about poison grain to put in the holes.
Whether the restriction against shooting on the Ranch is a county or a Ranch rule remains unclear, said Jefferson County Sheriff's Sgt. Jim Adkins.
Although some other Central Oregon golf courses do not have a similarly large population of the squirrels, which are often called sage rats, at least one other course is fighting back, too. The superintendent at the Juniper Golf Club in Redmond has a pest control company come out a few times a year.
"I would say that we have a sage rat population that is high," said Patrick Reilly, the superintendent. "If we didn't do anything about it, we would see increases every year."
The company places what he believes is a poisonous oat product outside the animals' holes.
Those holes pose a safety hazard, Jensen said. People could step into them and hurt themselves. He says he's not like Bill Murray's famous character Carl Spackler, the greenskeeper in the movie "Caddyshack" who battles a gopher.
"I'm not blowing up the golf course," Jensen said. He doesn't want to eliminate the population.
In fact, Jensen wants to be an environmental steward.
"If we could keep them off the manicured turf, I wouldn't have a problem at all," he said. Indeed, some golfers love the critters.
"I enjoy seeing the little rascals running around," said Ron Nuttman, a Bend resident.
He and his golfing buddy Bud Martens said they liked to feed the squirrels snacks. "We feed them chips," Martens said.
Some residents and golf course officials believe the squirrel population is on the upswing. Allan Kellogg, a golfer, is sure that it is. "We counted 112 on the fairway, just going down one fairway" about a month ago, he said.
"I've been here six years — they've increased probably five-fold, maybe six-fold since I've been here," Kellogg said.
The squirrels are capable of having two to three litters each year, said Steven George, the Deschutes district wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The gestation period is about four to five weeks, he said.
The animals hibernate during the winter and go underground during the hot part of the summer, he said.
At the Ranch golf course, the animals go underground around mid-July and won't come out again in full force until February or March, Jensen said.
For Scott Cravens, the director of golf at the course, the problem is getting to the point of being "ridiculous." A few years ago, it seemed like the squirrels stayed off the fairways, he said.
"Now you can hit a shot down the center of the course — at times — and have trouble finding the ball because it goes in a sage rat hole," he said.
Like Jensen, he'd like to see the population decrease, not be eliminated. "It's fun to look at the animals. At Crooked River Ranch that's part of the beauty and ambiance that's out here," Cravens said. He said he just wants the population to be more manageable.
Another golfer worries that the animals could cut into the golf course profits.
"They basically are undermining our little cash cow, so to speak, which is our golf course," said Jim Martin, the vice president of the board of directors. "This is how we support this community."
The revenue from the golf course helps support the homeowners association, he said. Last year, the golf course gave $133,200 to the homeowners association, said Cravens.
Martin would like to see the Belding ground squirrel population shrink by about 75 percent. That's all, he said.
"It's not that we want to extinguish them from the face of the earth," Cravens said.
