Gophers hold sway at park
Dunne Park is looking like the location for
”
Caddy Shack II.
”
The cult classic film pitted a half-witted greenkeeper played by
Bill Murray against a gopher, with disastrous results.
At Dunne Park in recent weeks, the gophers appear to be
victorious, and it’s not going unnoticed.
Gophers hold sway at park
Dunne Park is looking like the location for “Caddy Shack II.”
The cult classic film pitted a half-witted greenkeeper played by Bill Murray against a gopher, with disastrous results.
At Dunne Park in recent weeks, the gophers appear to be victorious, and it’s not going unnoticed.
“I am looking into it,” said Marcelo Orta, Hollister’s parks division supervisor. “It’s not only at Dunne Park, but just about everywhere. They’re really coming up. I don’t know if it’s because we haven’t had any rain.”
He also speculated that a family of barn owls that used to inhabit a palm tree at the park may have moved on. The ground under their tree was until recently littered with the remains of small rodents, but the “owl pellets” have disappeared and Orta hasn’t seen the birds in a while.
The gophers are more than a nuisance. “They’re even covering up our valve boxes,” Orta said. “Anywhere they can dig, they’ll dig.”
A special concern is the city’s historic rose garden, tucked into the southeast corner of Dunne Park.
The city contracts for gopher control at Vista Park Hill, Klauer Park in Sunnyslope Village and Valley View Park. All three of those areas abut undeveloped areas likely to be fertile gopher factories. But Dunne Park, located between Sixth, Seventh, West and Powell streets, is near the center of Hollister, an island of green ringed by concrete and asphalt, making the gopher population explosion a bit of a mystery.
Orta said he is working to get a contract in place for rodent control at Dunne Park as well.
He said that due to the presence of children and pets, gopher control has to be handled with care to ensure the public’s safety. And that, he said, is a job for a specialist.
