Fate of Seal Beach Foxes Is Still Trapped Within Courts

Everyone wanted to hurry in mid-1986, when the Navy began a controversial program to trap non-native red foxes roaming the national wildlife refuge within the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.

Biologists wanted to move quickly to remove the predators and protect plummeting populations of two endangered species of birds that nest in the refuge’s salt marsh. Almost as soon as it began, an animal rights group began pushing to get the trapping stopped, contending that the foxes were unfairly taking the heat for problems the Navy created.

But for both parties, it’s been a case of hurry up and wait.

A request by the Animal Lovers Volunteer Assn. for an injunction to stop the trapping was denied in September, 1986. Since then, the matter has been mired in the backlog of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The wait may be over soon: a panel of three judges will hear oral arguments in the case Tuesday morning in Pasadena.

Harold Baerg, president of the association, said the wait has hurt the group’s cause. For one thing, it has proven expensive: He estimates that the 3,600-member association has run up more than $20,000 in legal fees. Also, he said, “it gives (the Navy) more time to do their dirty work.”

For Baerg, “dirty work” means fox trapping. When the Navy won its first court battle back in 1986, it was free to continue trapping. Whether it has done so is unclear. The Navy, eager to avoid controversy, refuses to comment on the trapping program or the appeal.

Maria Iizuka, the U.S. Department of Justice attorney representing the Navy, also declined comment.

The trapping did continue after the injunction was denied, according to Bob Fields, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supervisor of federal wildlife refuges in California. But Fields said he did not know how long it took place or whether any trapping is taking place now.

While the status of the trapping program remains a mystery, it is apparent that there are still foxes in the refuge. Dick Zembal, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who is monitoring the population of endangered light-footed clapper rails in Anaheim Bay, said he saw a fox on the edge of the marsh just last week and also has seen signs that foxes continue to live within the marsh.

Protection of the clapper rails and California least terns that nest in the refuge was the impetus for starting the trapping program. Forty-five pairs of the endangered terns were counted in the marsh in 1981, but by 1983 the number had dwindled to four pairs. The light-footed clapper rail population had plummeted from 30 pairs in 1980 to five pairs in 1986.

Biologists said the population drop coincided with the first appearance of the predatory red foxes in the marsh. An environmental assessment released by the Navy in June, 1986, suggested trapping the estimated 60 foxes in the refuge, and if that failed, shooting them.

Trapping began in July, and 44 were captured in the early stages of the program. Homes could not be found for many of the animals, and an undetermined number were later destroyed.

But Baerg contends that the Navy--not the fox--is to blame for the declining number of clapper rails. The Navy, he said, has developed many of the higher areas of the marsh, forcing the clapper rails to nest in low-lying areas where their nests are more likely to be inundated by extremely high tides.

The environmental assessment that called for the trapping “was very sophomoric in its content . . . and very loosely documented,” Baerg said. “Then they decided on the very flimsy basis of this very flimsy document to go out and kill all the foxes.”

Baerg said he believes there are better ways to protect the clapper rails, such as building nesting berms in the marsh, which the Navy has avoided because they are too expensive. He expressed confidence that the appeal will succeed, but if it fails, according to the group’s attorney, Alan Martin, the case could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, away from the courts, things are looking up for the marsh’s endangered birds. Following the installation of an electric fence around a nesting island in the refuge, the number of California least tern pairs has risen from just four in 1983 to 49 in 1986.

Terns are migratory birds that can replenish their numbers at a breeding site relatively quickly. Clapper rails, by contrast, are sedentary, and recovery of a population is much more difficult, because a breeding site is less likely to draw birds from other nesting areas.

Last spring, when only seven pairs of light-footed clapper rails were counted in the marsh, biologist Zembal constructed special nesting platforms that emulated real clapper rail nests by floating at high tide. He wanted to get the birds to stop building nests on old roadbeds, where they were easy pickings for foxes and other predators.

During the last nesting season, which lasts from April through July, he was heartened to find 18 nests and 12 egg clutches on the 28 wooden platforms. Just last week, he completed his spring census at the site and counted 14 pairs of light-footed clapper rails, twice the number found in last year’s survey.

“That’s not a quantum leap, but it’s a start,” said Zembal, who now has 44 platforms in Anaheim Bay. But he thinks that predation is keeping his program from reaching its potential.

“This red fox problem is a real concern to me,” Zembal said. “The darned things should just be handled.”