For almost two decades, a golf course near Brisbane was home to six of Australia’s deadliest predators who had made their home in one of the lakes by the Cabrook Golf Club’s 14th hole… until one day they vanished without a trace.
Travel around to some of Australia’s many golf courses, and you wouldn’t be surprised to see any number of native animal species drawn to the manicured green. But at one golf course in Queensland, members were sharing their Club with more than just the (sometimes) friendly kangaroo population; instead, they’d have to play their round of 18 holes with six growing bull sharks.
It feels like something Australians have to get on with in their daily activities, with surfers risking shark encounters every time they take to the waves at any beach around the country… but you wouldn’t exactly expect to find them during an innocent round of golf.
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Carbrook Gold Course in Queensland is one such place. For 17 years, it was the home to a small group of bull sharks who were frequently spotted swimming and hunting in the course’s landlocked lake. But how did they get there… and more importantly, how did they leave?
The Club is situated around 14 kilometres away from the Pacific Ocean. Since 1978 this 92.83-hectare plot of land at the junction of the Logan and Albert Rivers in Queensland has welcomed avid golfers to come and play on their 18-hole course… but there is one, very important, catch.
Due to the Club’s location, adverse weather conditions such as tropical storms and floods are frequent and severe. Throughout its history, the Club has made efforts to protect the course from flooding but has been forced to close three times due to inevitable flooding and the financial impact that it can bring.
WATCH: The shark-infested waters of the Cabrook Golf Club in Queensland below.
On one occasion, the downpour was so severe that the banks of the adjacent river overflowed with floodwater, fully submerging the greens surrounding the now famous 14th hole. That’s when six unsuspecting bull sharks made their way across the course and into the landlocked lake in the middle of the course where they stayed for the next two decades.
Rumours of the Cabrook Golf Club’s new jawsome inhabitants started to spread, with members reportedly hearing thrashing of tail fins within the lake’s black waters during their round of golf.
The sharks were thriving in the lake, eating the abundance of fish and small marine life that had lived in the lake undisturbed until then. The bull sharks had understandably garnered a lot of attention from the local community and media, with many intrigued to see if the Cabrook Golf Club’s new residents were more fact than fiction.
Instead of implementing measures to remove the sharks from the course, Cabrook members protected the group of six, and even, on occasion, fed them food when they were concerned about their long-term survival. They lived quite peacefully alongside the golfers in the lake by the 14th hole for 17 years; no shark attacks were ever reported. Then, one day the sharks mysteriously vanished without a trace.
Only two sharks were confirmed dead during this time; one shark was found floating on the surface; the other was killed by illegal fishing. To this day, the fate of the four remaining sharks remains a peculiar mystery.