Come along with me on my carnage (I mean course) check this morning. What should be one of the most beautiful golf courses in the country is being destroyed by herds of javelina. If anyone has a contact in AZ state govt that can help us find a solution please pass it along. pic.twitter.com/XftywHtVCf

— Em Casey (@emcaseyturf) October 22, 2023

The story became something of Rorschach test, with one half of the public expressing sympathy toward the golf course and its employees and the other half siding with the adorable little javelinas, who were simply trying to survive an unusually hot, dry summer in their natural habitat. It became a referendum on the sustainability of the sport as a whole and quickly spiralled into one of the biggest golf stories of the week.

This made a tricky situation for Seven Canyons general manger Dave Bisbee even trickier. Javelinas are classified as “big game” under Arizona law and cannot hunted, trapped or relocated except under extreme circumstances. So Bisbee, working in conjunction with the Arizona Game & Fish Department, was forced to cook up an outside-of-the-box solution:

Chili oil.

Apparently, while we humans love to drizzle the stuff on everything from pizza to chow mein, javelinas aren’t as fond of the spicy oil. For now, the club is perfecting its recipe at its on-site restaurant — “We’re still trying to figure out the right formulation in the chili oil we put out. It’s a delicate thing for the grass,” Bisbee told ABC News — but it’s also working with suppliers to acquire a concentrate for a spray. So far, the results have been far more positive than their previous experiment with granules of coyote urine, which Bisbee likened to “bacon bits for their [the javelinas’] salad.”

The end goal is not the elimination or removal of the javelinas — wildlife officials estimate up to 450 javelinas may currently inhabit the golf course and its surrounding areas — but to encourage them to move on to greener (or should we say milder?) pastures until the weather cools down and does the job for them.

Main image: mlharing

The post Arizona golf course cooks up genius solution to hungry javelina problem appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

It’s getting worse and worse out there — crime is a viral trend now, yadda yadda yadda — but the man-made destruction can’t hold a candle to what’s been happening at this top Arizona golf course. If you’re sensitive to graphic golf gore, now’s the time to look away.

Come along with me on my carnage (I mean course) check this morning. What should be one of the most beautiful golf courses in the country is being destroyed by herds of javelina. If anyone has a contact in AZ state govt that can help us find a solution please pass it along. pic.twitter.com/XftywHtVCf

— Em Casey (@emcaseyturf) October 22, 2023

That was the scene at Seven Canyons Golf Club in Sedona as captured by superintendent Em Casey on Sunday morning. But it wasn’t humans or weather or some sort of extraterrestrial blight that caused this — it was a pack of adorable boar-like animals called javelinas.

Don’t let their cuddly appearance fool you, however. Javelinas are stubborn and stout. They defend their territory aggressively and sometimes fighting each other to the death over a prickly pear, their favourite snack. They travel in herds of five to 15, though some as large as 50 have been reported. When moving in numbers, even cougars — one of Earth’s apex predators — are afraid from them. So what chance does a greenskeeper stand?

mlharing

That’s a good question, and one Casey is desperately looking to answer. As you can see from the video, the damage to Seven Canyons is extensive, bordering on catastrophic. But you can’t just hire an exterminator. Javelinas are classified as a “big game species” under Arizona law, making it unlawful to trap, injure or kill them — even in situations where they may be causing danger or damage — without meeting a “rigorous” set of provisions. Where that leaves Seven Canyons remains to be seen, but here’s hoping this pack have had their fill and have moved on to greener pastures … or perhaps fairways.

The post Watch: Herd of javelina absolutely massacre Arizona golf course appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.