Aronimink's low-tech, organic - and peppy - pest-control

The 90 or so landscapers toiling over the bent grass at Aronimink Golf Club for this week's AT&T National tournament aren't the only ones charged with keeping the course immaculate.

Curled up in an office during most of the golfing hours and flitting about dozens of cedar-and-redwood nest boxes scattered around the course are, respectively, a border collie who runs Aronimink's Canada goose patrol, and flocks of bluebirds and swallows whose presence is courted for their insect-eating prowess.

The low-tech, wholly organic approaches to pest control are likely to draw little notice from the up to 40,000 golf fans who show up to check out Tiger Woods and other PGA luminaries at the show, though a closer look will reveal the birdhouses sited amid the fescue of the roughs.

Course regulars fondly swap stories about Charlie, the black-and-white canine called "part of the staff" by course superintendent John Gosselin for her help with geese and other critter interlopers - including foxes and, two summers ago, a coyote.

"She's just prepared to chase anything that moves," assistant superintendent Ben Little said. "Never actually caught anything, but she has fun with it."

She scampered alongside Little's golf cart Monday afternoon as he coordinated a small army of mowers and other course-groomers. She scanned the skies and dashed away whenever a bird - or an airplane - caught her attention.

"She's kind of doing a patrol thing," said Little as Charlie took off again.

Gosselin said his station at Aronimink takes on elements of wildlife management, between the birds, squirrels, fish, turtles, and frogs that populate the course and the skies above it. Sharp-eyed fans might even spot birds of prey from nearby nests during the tournament, he said.

"Hawks love golf courses," Gosselin said, "because there's all this open land."

Charlie's job is to help deter animals that interfere with the golfers. Geese, for example, are liable to leave droppings that build up "to where that's all you're walking on," Gosselin said.

So, 41/2 years ago, club officials imported Charlie to make the course a less-inviting place to nest.

"Of all the things I've seen, it's the most humane," Gosselin said. "No geese get harmed or killed."

By contrast, bluebirds and tree swallows are so welcomed around Aronimink that club members have for years maintained a network of wooden nest boxes and monitor the population diligently.