Sometimes the greenkeepers on the course will find paw-prints or holes that have been dug in the bunkers. It is thought that this disturbance is caused by foxes inhabiting the course that emerge at night. Of course this is not convenient and can sometimes mean extra work for the greenstaff.
The head greenkeeper of the course has a firm belief that hunting the
foxes on the course will reduce their population significantly enough to
reduce this type of bunker disturbance. Of course it is quite possible that shooting a few foxes on the occasional evening might have no significant effect on the amount of foxes that inhabit the golf course. The reason proposed for this is that foxes are quite able to scale walls or dig beneath them, suggesting that any foxes that may be shot, would quite swiftly be replaced by other foxes in and around the area. It is said that for fox populations to be reduced at least 70% of the total population would need to be removed annually. Given the last census of urban foxes in Britain of 33000, this comes to 231000 foxes that would need to be culled each year. Of course the contract hunter on our golf course will not nearly achieve this number, even if he hunts on other golf courses. This would mean the 634 foxes would need to be killed every evening on every day of the year.
The animal pictured here has been shot by a contract hunter and left for dead. This is arguably an unethical practice given that if an animal is wounded, surely it should be found by the hunter, in order to reduce sufering and also ensure removal of the corpse. This will also limit the chance of any disease transferrence to other fauna or possibly staff and golfers too.
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