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BY BETH QUIMBY
MaineToday Media, Inc. 05/15/2008

MaineToday Media, Inc.

Tom MacDowell and Bill Fogel thought they were playing a regular round of golf at Portland's Riverside Golf Course last week as they watched MacDowell's ball fall just short of the 14th green.

Then a coyote emerged from the woods.

It scooped up the ball in its mouth and trotted back to the trees.

"Maybe he collects Nike golf balls," said MacDowell.

MacDowell and other golfers in southern Maine are discovering a hazard that's not usually mentioned in the same breath as woods, water and sand traps: namely, foxes and coyotes stealing balls during play. Dozens of incidents involving ball-stealing critters have been reported on at least three golf courses in southern Maine in the past year.

Wildlife biologists say the motion of a bouncing ball and its resemblance to an egg triggers the instinct to pounce. Golfers and others say they welcome their encounters with nature's golf ball thieves.

MacDowell and Fogel said they got a kick out of the stolen golf ball incident and it didn't cost MacDowell any strokes. Under the rules of golf, if a ball at rest is moved by an "outside agency" -- in this case a coyote -- there is no penalty.

Foxes have taken up residence around the Highland Green Adult Resort Community and Golf Course in Topsham for the past several years. Golf Pro Dan Perry said that last year one fox often positioned himself at the fifth hole. This spring he has been spotted staking out the first hole. "He doesn't bother anybody except to take their golf balls," said Perry.

Highland Green residents who walk the development's trails and open land sometimes discover caches of golf balls left behind by the foxes. Lyn Adams said she was out walking with her husband when they came upon a fox den.

"And sure enough, there were 30 balls buried, covered with leaves and dirt," she said.

Sally VonBenken, who walks the trails around Highland Green as a member of the Cathance River Education Alliance, said she has found piles of neatly stacked golf balls in the woods.

"They are all chewed up," VonBenken said.

Jon Leahy, marketing and sales director at Highland Green, said at first he didn't believe the stories people told of ball-stealing foxes until he witnessed them himself. He said a fox absconded with one person's ball and then came back and made off with the next shot.

On Monday, Leahy and his office mates watched a fox family cavorting for two hours outside their office.

Golf course officials say they like the furry animals. Roger Densmore, golf pro at Sable Oaks in South Portland, said the foxes keep down the population of ground hogs, the bane of many a fairway. He said the foxes that live around Sable Oaks are fun to watch and playful.

Last summer there was a fox family living near the eighth green.

"Every time they heard a commotion their little heads would pop up," he said.

Wildlife experts say golf courses make good habitat for foxes and coyotes which feed on the mice, voles and other small animals that frequent the rough.

Christine Maher, an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern Maine, said foxes are famous for creating caches of food.

"I have seen them do that with baby ground hogs," she said.

Maher said the bouncing golf ball triggers the same reaction to pounce in a fox as a toy mouse triggers in cat.

Walter Jakubas, wildlife biologist and mammal group leader at Maine's Department of Island Fisheries and Wildlife, said based on his own experience, ball-stealing is standard behavior for foxes. He said foxes are curious and playful and can grow quickly accustomed to humans.

When he worked on Kodiak Island in the Alaskan wilderness, a fox closely followed a Frisbee game among his friends. Just to see what would happen, Jakubas threw the frisbee toward the fox, which ran away with it.

"I had to track the fox two miles to get the Frisbee back, " he said.

But Jakubas said there is a down side when wild animals become so accustomed to humans that the lose their fear. He pointed to the recent string of coyote attacks on people living in the Los Angeles suburbs as an example.

MacDowell said the coyote who stole his ball at Riverside appeared to have a healthy fear of humans. Either that or the coyote had quickly learned golf balls are not particularly tasty. When MacDowell returned to the 14th hole the next day, he spotted the coyote once again. But this time it left his ball alone.

"He kept his distance," MacDowell said.

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