Bolsa Chica : Trapping of Red Foxes to Resume to Save Birds

The state Department of Fish and Game will resume trapping red foxes at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve later this month in an effort to protect two endangered species of birds whose eggs and chicks have been devoured by the predators, agency officials said Monday.

According to Fish and Game reports, eggs or chicks in 75 California least tern nests were lost last year to predators, including red foxes and other animals. Belding’s savannah sparrow nests also were hard hit, but population figures were not immediately available, said Earl Laupe, a wildlife management supervisor for the state agency.

While skunks and kestrel also are predators in the state reserve, the red fox is believed to be the primary one, Laupe said. Ten foxes were trapped at the Bolsa Chica reserve last year and a similar number have been seen in the 800 to 900 acres of wetland this year, he said.

But a spokesman for an Orange County-based animal rights organization threatened Monday to take action to halt the state’s trapping program. The Animal Lovers Volunteer Assn. already has filed a suit aimed at blocking similar trapping of red foxes at the nearby Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.

“We would have to take action to prevent unnecessary killing, said Hal Baerg, president of the Huntington Beach organization. “We’ll do what we have to do.”

But state officials said killing the foxes is their only alternative.

“We are legally constrained to save the least tern,” said Kurt Taucher, spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game.

“(The foxes) are too common and too abundant and the zoos don’t want them,” he said, referring to problems associated with federal efforts to relocate red foxes when trapping at the naval weapons station first began in 1986.