These trees stand apart from the others.
Despite being encircled in a jungle of smaller trees, shrubs and vines, about 20 pines tower over the UF Bat House Woods Conservation Area.
But soon, nine of these decades-old, almost 80-feet-tall pines will be chopped down to allow more sunlight onto the seventh hole of UF’s golf course in the winter.
One of the trees’ neighbors, Rod McGalliard, said he isn’t happy about it.
“These (trees) are giants,” the 67-year-old UF alumnus said. “You look around campus and see if you find another pine tree that size.”
McGalliard and his wife, Kim Tanzer, live in the Golfview community, which is bordered by the bat houses, conservation area and the UF golf course.
“If you can cut down these trees in the nature conservation area,” he said, “what else can you do to it?”
The area is supposed to be protected, McGalliard said. He cited UF’s Conservation Area Land Management Plan, which said the region is to be preserved because of its “relatively undisturbed natural character and its proximity to Lake Alice.”
On Jan. 8, Scott Hampton, Director of UF Golf Courses, met with the UF Vegetation and Landscaping Committee and requested that some of the loblolly pines be removed. The golf course’s grass was replaced with the carpet-like Ultradwarf grass in the fall, which needs a lot of sunlight and is more susceptible to funguses than other grasses.
The committee voted unanimously to recommend removing the trees.
Its chair, Gail Hansen, said the committee’s recommendation included using mitigation funds to remove invasive plants that have crept into the conservation area.
Residents from Golfview will also be able to suggest how mitigation funds should be used, she said.
Only Curtis Reynolds, UF’s Vice President for Business Affairs, can halt the tree removal process, Hansen said. Reynolds approved the committee’s recommendation March 31.
“At this point, the committee is not involved in it,” Hansen said.
Reynolds’ secretary said he declined to comment.
McGalliard emailed his concerns to Reynolds, Hampton, UF President Kent Fuchs and others involved in UF planning and relations.
“If you can just cut (the pines) down simply by alleging that the grass doesn’t grow as well for three months in the wintertime because these nuisance trees cast a shade, I mean, I can come up with an excuse to cut down anything,” McGalliard said.
He said he worries that the university will lose its Audubon Sanctuary status, which it earned in October 2005 for holding itself to high environmental standards.
The residents in Golfview were not warned that the trees would be removed, McGalliard said. He doesn’t think Summer students are aware of the university’s decision either.
“It’s a quiet time,” he said. “It’s the time to do this stuff.”
McGalliard said it was “total serendipity” that he and Tanzer saw the tree-removal truck with a worker in it on their morning walk.
“If we hadn’t come this way, we’d have never seen the truck,” McGalliard said. “I would’ve never talked to the guy (who was going to trim trees and cut the pines). … I would have never spent enough time chatting with him to figure out what the heck he was doing.”
When the worker told McGalliard and Tanzer that he was cutting down some of the trees, McGalliard said he told the man to call his boss. The area was preserved, McGalliard said.
The truck drove away that day, but it will be back if Reynolds doesn’t stop the removal process.
“I’m worried about these trees, and I’m worried about this area,” McGalliard said. “And I’m worried about the campus.”
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 6/9/15]
Rod McGalliard, 67, talks about why he doesn't want UF's loblolly pine trees overlooking the golf course to be removed. Nine of the trees will be cut down to increase the amount of sunlight that reaches the turf.
