Local News in Brief : Huntington Beach : Group Suspends Suit Over Trapping Foxes

An animal rights group suspended its lawsuit against the state Department of Fish and Game after the agency agreed to amend its program of trapping red foxes that prey on endangered shore birds in the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, a spokesman for the group said Monday.

The Animal Lovers Volunteer Assn. won a temporary restraining order two weeks ago barring the state from shooting or poisoning red foxes. But Superior Court Commissioner Eleanor M. Palk ruled that the state could continue using steel-jaw traps to capture the non-native foxes, which biologists and state officials say are preying on the endangered least tern.

Hal Baerg of Huntington Beach, president of the Animal Lovers Volunteer Assn., said he reached an agreement last week with Chuck Graves, assistant manager of the Southern California Region of the Fish and Game Department. A court hearing had been scheduled for today on the association’s request for a permanent halt to the state’s red fox eradication program.

Officials of the Fish and Game Department could not be reached for comment Monday.

According to Baerg, the state agreed to withdraw all traps from the outer perimeters of the reserve and restrict them to an area within 100 feet of South Island, where the least terns nest. He said the state also agreed to use unbaited traps rather than those that use bait to lure the animals to them.