The most exciting golf course in the world: with sharks!

In Queensland, Australia, there is one of the most exciting golf courses in the world.

For nearly 20 years, 6 to 12 sharks have been living in the lake of this golf course. Standing at the 14th hole by the lake, people can see nearly 3-meter-long sharks surfacing from time to time, revealing their iconic dorsal fins - this incredible scene has become a daily occurrence here.

Sharks live on the golf course? | CARBROOK GOLF COURSE

The golf course manager did not have the bad taste to raise sharks. In fact, all these sharks were wild. They suddenly ran from the sea into the lake and settled there, and then suddenly disappeared nearly 20 years later . To this day, there are still many mysteries behind this.

Sharks in the stadium

Sharks were first spotted in the lake at the Carbrook Golf Club in 1996. It was a small group of bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas), numbering at least six.

No one knows exactly when these sharks slipped into the lake, but they probably came with a flood . In May 1996, the nearby Logan River flooded, and the golf course and surrounding land were submerged under water. The Logan River is connected to the sea, and the sharks that swam upstream from the estuary swam all the way into the lake. Later, the flood receded, and the sharks could no longer return along the same route, so they had to stay in the lake.

There were no floods of sufficient magnitude until 2013 - meaning the sharks were completely isolated from the rest of the world for at least 17 years .

The sharks have spent at least 17 years in the lake, completely isolated from the outside world | hagginoaks.com

Fortunately, this 21-hectare, 14-meter-deep lake was already home to many fish that could provide food for the sharks. The stadium staff would occasionally feed the sharks with raw meat. The sharks survived, and some even grew to about 3 meters in length.

Course manager Scott Wagstaff did not try to drive the sharks away : he simply nailed a sign warning people not to enter the water and continued business as usual. The only impact was that the staff could no longer salvage golf balls that fell into the lake, so they had to be left to settle at the bottom of the lake.

Warning sign by the lake | Carbrook Golf Club

The sharks became the mascot of the Carbrook Club, and every member who came to play loved them - until 2015, when they finally disappeared from the lake . The departure of these sharks was as mysterious as their arrival. They may have escaped through another flood and eventually returned to the sea, but no one knows when they left.

New record for freshwater survival

If the protagonist is not the bull shark, this mysterious story would be difficult to establish - most shark species can only survive in the sea, and they cannot tolerate fresh water with low salinity. But the bull shark is one of the few exceptions . The kidneys and rectal glands of this shark have strong regulatory capabilities, which allows them to adapt well to sudden changes in salinity and live equally well in fresh water and sea water.

Before this, people have found that bull sharks often swim upstream from estuaries, enter freshwater rivers, and even swim thousands of kilometers away. The sharks in the golf course set a new record for bull sharks' freshwater survival: they survived safely for at least 17 years in lake water with a salinity of less than 5% .

The bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) is one of the few sharks that has adapted well to freshwater. | Dave Harasti

Bull sharks live about 30 years, which means that more than half of these sharks' lives were spent on the golf course . Peter Gausmann, the researcher who documented the incident, said the sharks' survival record suggests that their ability to adapt to fresh water is likely "unlimited."

As climate change makes extreme weather like rainstorms more intense — meaning that floods big enough to flush sharks into lakes may become more likely in the future — people will likely continue to encounter these sharks in unexpected places.

People are likely to encounter these sharks in other strange places in the future | Wikipedia

While there's nothing wrong with playing golf while standing on the lakeshore, shark risk must be considered when swimming in a lake close to the ocean . After all, bull sharks have attacked humans in the water several times and have caused 26 human deaths worldwide.

"You should never bathe in a pool that was once connected to the ocean. You never know if there are sharks living there," said researcher Gaussman.

References

[1]https://ojs.inidep.edu.ar/index.php/mafis/article/view/289/378

[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/science/sharks-golf-course-australia.html

[3] https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/factors/species-implicated/

Author: Window Knocking Rain

Editor: Mai Mai

Image source: CARBROOK GOLF COURSE