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As the first rays of morning sun illuminate Kiawah, there is a flurry of
activity by the native inhabitants to stake claims to prime areas along the
fringes of the barrier island’s seven luxury golf courses.
On the second hole of the famed Ocean Course, a 6-foot alligator has begun a
deliberate trek across the fairway to an inviting marsh.
Loggerhead turtles nest on the beach, while foxes engage in early wind
sprints, darting in and out of the bordering brush.
On the 17th hole at Osprey Point, a bobcat is concealed among moss-draped
oaks watching a group of whitetail deer feasting on a breakfast of acorns.
Teeming with wildlife, the 10-mile-long island located 20 miles southeast of
Charleston would appear to be a contradiction in terms. In addition to
Kiawah Island’s world-class golf courses, there are approximately 3,200
villas, condominiums and multimillion-dollar homes. About 400,000 people
visit the island annually.
Kiawah also is home to 18 species of mammals, more than 30 reptiles and
amphibians, and approximately 190 varieties of birds.
At Kiawah Island, animals play host to golfers.
Monitoring the delicate balance between nature and the encroachment of
civilization is the job of Jim Jordan, who holds one of the rarest city
government titles in the United States – he is the wildlife biologist for
the town of Kiawah Island.
“Certainly Jim’s role for the island is an extension of the commitment to an
ecological balance of what is here and accommodating the people who live and
visit here while serving the golf courses and hotels,” said Roger Warren,
president of both the Kiawah Island Golf Resort and PGA of America. “Jim
does a great job monitoring how we protect those natural assets.”
Jordan’s primary focus is the environmental health of the island and how the
golf courses, development and tourists are impacting Kiawah’s fragile
ecosystem.
The golf courses on Kiawah provide an important open space for wildlife,
acting as freeways for the animals to access all parts of the island. On
Kiawah, the animals always have the right of way.
“Animals need four things to survive: food, water, cover and space. Golf is
definitely a big component of Kiawah Island and no less so for the animals
that are very active in the early mornings and late afternoons,” Jordan
said. “All of the wildlife on Kiawah utilize the golf courses in some way,
shape or form.”
Jordan views his town biologist position as a partnership with island
superintendents.
“We all have the same goal of maintaining and protecting nature,” Jordan
said. “I’m here as a resource for the courses, and conversely the
superintendents have been very responsive in helping me.”
Warren maintains that the mindset of managers for the courses is that sound
environmental practices must be employed at all times.
“We view the preservation of Kiawah Island as part of our professional
responsibility,” Warren said. “I think we’ve demonstrated that golf courses
are in fact good for the environment when you employ controlled application
processes that are in tune with the ecological sensitivity of the habitat.
There is a high level of commitment by our people to help Jim succeed so
that we don’t lose the beauty of this island.”
The 200 birdhouses scattered on the Osprey Point, Cougar Point, Turtle Point
and River courses are a good example of that commitment.
This “nature first” mindset on Kiawah Island has earned the property’s
owners, Kiawah Development Partners, honors for environmental stewardship
from the Urban Land Institute, the South Carolina Department of Natural
Resources and the South Carolina Wildlife Federation.
“Even though parts of the island are developed, they’ve been able to
preserve the maritime forest, and that is why the wildlife is so plentiful,”
said Melissa Bimbi, an endangered species biologist with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service. “Most people treasure living on Kiawah Island and seeing a
bobcat, blue heron or bald eagle. Jim is very open and honest with the town
about the needs and impacts on the wildlife.”
One part of Jordan’s annual regimen is testing the island’s numerous
waterways for fertilizer or pesticides runoff from the courses. So far,
Jordan said, the water has remained virtually pristine.
The addition of Jordan six years ago as Kiawah’s first wildlife biologist is
the town’s most recent example of its devotion to preserving wildlife
habitat.
Jordan is a South Carolina native who forged an affinity for nature early
on.
“My dad, grandfather and uncles were an outdoors family,” Jordan said. “I
grew up doing a lot of hunting and fishing with them. What I learned was an
appreciation of the wildlife and nature. Over the years, it became my
calling.”
He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Furman University and a
master’s degree from the University of Georgia.
It was his master’s thesis – field work on the populations of deer, foxes
and bobcats on Kiawah Island – that eventually led to his hiring by the town
in September 2000.
Jordan was instrumental in helping Gary Player-designed Cougar Point, which
features play across a wide expanse of tidal marsh, achieve certification
last year in the Audubon International Cooperative Sanctuary for Golf
Courses program. (The Ocean Course has been certified since 1995.) Working
with Cougar Point assistant superintendent Andy Steele, Jordan provided
detailed statistics on the number of bird species, their populations and
breeding tendencies.
“It was work that I had been documenting over the years,” Jordan said. “What
we found was that the breeding routes for the birds were all at points very
close to the golf course. We found more than 100-plus species at Cougar
Point.”
Jordan also headed a 2005 comprehensive aerial photo survey and
three-dimensional mapping project of the island. The project is so detailed,
he boasts, that every green on the island can be viewed from any angle.
Because many of the island’s bobcats have been fitted with transmitters,
their movement can be tracked. By incorporating the aerial maps with
tracking information, the bobcats’ habitat can be determined and their
transportation corridors revealed.
The aerial photography also plays an instrumental role in a current study by
the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Sciences into the effects of golf
course runoff into the island’s estuaries and retention ponds. The NCCOS is
part of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association, and its goal
in this study is to determine if nutrients found in the water systems are
from golf course effluent or animal fecal matter.
“Thus far, most of the findings are pointing to the animals, especially the
bird population,” Jordan said.
The town’s foresight in creating the wildlife biologist position paid huge
dividends after a series of storms in 2005 wiped out the beaches and dunes
adjacent to The Ocean Course. At one point, a 400-foot sand buffer between
the 18th green and the Atlantic Ocean had been reduced to a mere 24 feet,
and the course’s 16th hole and practice range were devastated.
The town hired a consultant earlier this year to design a new buffer, but
the project faced a considerable hurdle. Part of the affected area is the
winter home of an endangered shore bird called the piping plover. As the
proposed project was revealed, environmental groups, including the South
Carolina Audubon Society, campaigned against any dredging or scraping of
sand to restore the buffer zones.
To make matters worse, The Ocean Course was in a battle against time. The
project had a small window of opportunity for construction while the plovers
were summering on the shores of Lake Michigan, not to mention the pressing
deadline of next May’s Senior PGA Championship.
Jordan found himself in a pressure cooker representing the interests of the
town and golf course while trying to broker an agreement with a host of
governmental agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers and the South Carolina Department of Natural
Resources.
“It was a tough time for Jim because he had never undergone the permitting
process with government agencies,” said Bimbi, who handled negotiations of
the beach renourishment project for the Fish and Wildlife Service. “I have
to admit, it got ugly there for a while.”
But what brought the two sides together during the talks was that government
biologist Bimbi was dealing with town biologist Jordan.
“That made all the difference in the world because the bottom line was, ‘How
are we going to protect the habitat of this endangered bird?’ ” Bimbi said.
“As a biologist, Jim understood that need, and he had the ability to go back
to the town council and golf course management and explain why preserving
the habitat was so important. He had the credibility with them. I’m not so
sure they would have believed us and accepted our position as quickly as
they did
with Jim.”
The original plan to move 1.2 million cubic yards of sand was reduced to
550,000 cubic yards and got approval. But before the work was completed
successfully in late July, the Audubon Society took the matter to court,
filing a lawsuit to have the project stopped.
Jordan proved to be the key witness during the hearing to determine the
validity of the Audubon’s claim that the project would harm the piping
plover habitat.
“I was excited to testify,” Jordan said. “I felt we were blindsided by the
lawsuit and Audubon didn’t really understand the project. They had their
facts all wrong.”
State Administrative Law Court judge John Geathers agreed with Kiawah
Island, and the project continued.
“Jim’s expertise and testimony were instrumental in getting the injunction
dropped and the project completed,” Warren said.
Although the beach work is completed, Jordan is responsible for monitoring
the piping plover population and the health of its habitat for the next five
years. He counts the birds every 10 days.
“We’ve counted 20 piping plovers, which means most of them have returned,”
Jordan said.
“This has been a real win-win for everyone.”
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