Student Profile - Steve Thompson, Wildlife Management Course
I work on a golf course where we have two 18-hole courses; each slightly different in the way we look after them. Both are full of wildlife which we have to look after alongside our normal duties. We have to manage the courses with nature conservation in mind. We have the endangered Water Vole in the brook on the old course along with kingfisher and visiting otter. We now have barn owls back breeding after a gap of 15 years. We have 120 nest boxes up covering both courses which enables me to keep a yearly check on the bird populations that use them. As well as all the good stuff, there are pests on the course such as rabbits and squirrels which also have to be managed. This course gave me a better understanding of the interaction between all the animals in a given habitat, and the fact that each has a part to play.
John O’Gaunt Golf Club (website here) has won a silver award for our ecology work in 2010 and 2011 in the living countryside awards run by the local branch of the C.P.R.E. In 2011 we received a highly commended in the national golf environment competition. In 2012 we reached the final stages of the same competition and are awaiting the result. I have done radio & TV interviews, trying to get the message across that a golf course is not just a golf course. The club are now corporate members of the R.S.P.B and an article will appear in the January edition of their magazine. There has also been an article in another magazine called Pitchcare all about a new wildflower scheme we are now running called operation pollinator.
The Wildlife Management course added to my existing knowledge which should help improve the golf course in years to come.
To find out more about the Wildlife Management course, please click here. |