madison golf courses

There are droppings from geese, deer that feast on flowers and sandhill cranes than can damage the grounds in search of seeds and bugs.

But a rambunctious skulk of four red foxes found a new way to torment greenskeepers by digging holes in putting greens at The Glen Golf Park on Madison’s Near West Side. And now the foxes have found themselves in a six-month research effort by the UW Urban Canid Project that has been studying foxes and coyotes in Madison for nearly 10 years.

The most recent study, which included relocating three of the four foxes and equipping all of them with GPS collars to track their movements, has reduced but not eliminated damage at the nine-hole golf course at the corner of Glenway Street and Speedway Road, and has given researchers an insight on the wandering and sometimes deadly travel habits of urban foxes, whose top predator is motor vehicle traffic.