Officials Admit Killing Some Foxes Trapped at Navy’s Wildlife Refuge

An undetermined number of red foxes trapped at the Navy’s Seal Beach wildlife refuge have been killed while a lawsuit filed to protect them drags through the federal courts, wildlife officials said last week.

Trapping of the foxes began in July, and 44 of the animals were caught. But homes could only be found for some of them, and an Orange County organization suing the Navy to stop the trapping claims that half of the 44 foxes have been killed.

The trapping is part of a program to remove foxes from a 900-acre salt marsh within the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station because they threaten two endangered species of birds, the least tern and the light-footed clapper rail.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official said some foxes have been destroyed, but refused to say how many or by what method. Wildlife service officials previously have said the foxes would be killed with drugs or shot. Navy officials refused to comment on any aspect of the program while the case is on appeal.

Can’t Find Homes for Them

The program to remove the estimated 60 foxes began amid some fanfare last July. But as more foxes were captured, a Sacramento group helping the Navy to relocate the animals encountered trouble.

“We can’t find homes for any of them,” said Scott Vorhees, a spokesman for the Animal Protection Institute, in an interview Friday. “We have not found one state that will allow us to release any foxes.”

It is “really kind of a no-win situation,” said Barbara Massey, a free-lance biological consultant. “Nobody wants to kill foxes, but unless something is done, the endangered species that inhabit the marsh are done.”

Massey said that if the foxes are not removed, the Navy will end up with a “fox farm, not a wildlife refuge.”

In July, the Animal Lovers Volunteers Assn., a nonprofit Orange County group, filed suit in federal court, claiming that the program to trap the foxes promoted “the inhumane, gross slaughter of helpless animals.”

In September, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Kelleher denied the association’s request for an injunction to stop the trapping. The case will be heard by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco several months from now. But by then, biologists say, either all the foxes, or all the birds, could be gone.

The controversial trapping program is designed to protect two types of birds living within the marshy refuge next to Anaheim Bay. The migratory least tern leaves the base in September and returns around April, according to biologist Charles Collins. The light-footed clapper rail lives year-round in the salty marsh, according to Massey.

Populations Have Dwindled

Biologists hired by the government a few years ago discovered that the bird population had dwindled to critically low numbers since the red foxes began appearing in the early 1980s. An environmental report released by the Navy last June suggested trapping the foxes, and if that failed, shooting them.

The federal government considers the birds endangered species which must be protected from predators.

Biologists believe that the foxes, which are not native to the area, probably are descendants from European animals brought over for fox hunts, or escapees from failed fur ranches.

The rust-colored animals with bushy white-tipped tails frequently are seen raiding garbage cans on the base and crossing Westminster Boulevard to beg food scraps from nearby residents, according to a Navy spokesman.

The last foxes were caught in October by a state-licensed trapper, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said.

“It’s a very, very sensitive issue with a lot of folks,” said Bob Fields, U.S. Fish and Game Service supervisor of federal wildlife refuges in California. “That’s why everyone is so cautious (about discussing it), especially since it is on appeal.”

Fields said new traps may be set in February, after an animal census is taken and shortly before the birds’ breeding season starts.

Down From 1980

In 1980, 43 pairs of nesting least terns were counted. In 1982, the year Fields said the foxes appeared, only 17 pairs of terns were spotted. In 1985, about 26 tern pairs reared three young. Fields said he did not have more recent census figures.

Massey, a biologist who specializes in clapper rails, said she does not have current figures for the rails, but plans to count the birds later this month and again during their spring nesting season.

Before Patricia Jones, environmental services coordinator for the Navy’s 5,000-acre weapons storage facility, was directed not to discuss the program, she had said the first priority would be to find new homes for the foxes.

In July, five of the seven foxes caught in the first weekend of trapping were placed with a Tujunga wildlife protection group. Two injured by the traps were sent to a rehabilitation center in the San Gabriel Valley and one died, according to federal court records.

Several others (specific figures are not available) were offered to zoos and research groups.

California Fish and Game Department officials consider the foxes to be an exotic species and will not permit them to be released in the state. Midwestern states, including Ohio and Indiana, where the red foxes are most common, have also refused to take them, Vorhees said. Other states either have too many foxes of their own or fear the introduction of diseases. Offers by his animal protection group to quarantine and alter the foxes have not helped, Vorhees said.

As a last resort, the Animal Protection Institute considered private adoptions, but decided the foxes were too wild to be pets.

Vorhees, who has visited the Seal Beach wildlife refuge, said, “It seems like the Navy has tried everything” to protect the birds from the foxes, including the building of a fence around the birds’ nesting area and mounds inside them.

‘Cheaper to Kill Them’

But, Harold Baerg, vice president of the Orange County group suing to stop the trapping, disagrees.

“The program is very unsuccessful,” Baerg said. “The problem is it’s cheaper to kill them (foxes) than to do the work they are supposed to do to protect the birds.”

Baerg said building berms and planting certain grasses favorable to nesting would help solve the problems.

Baerg, who lives about half a mile from the refuge, said his association wants to hold the government accountable for spending taxpayers’ money to kill animals.

Alan Martin, attorney for the Animal Lovers Volunteers Assn., said he is concerned about the Navy’s refusal to discuss the trapping.

“It’s very frustrating to have the best and only source of accurate information close the door,” he said. “It’s really not an appropriate position for the government to take.”

While the case is on appeal, the trapping can continue legally, according to Maria Iizuka, an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s land and natural resources division.