Wildlife Is Losing Ground to Man

Barry Thomas can remember when golden eagles flew over Orange County, about 20 years ago.

“You could see them up to the late 1970s,” said Thomas, a biology professor at Cal State Fullerton. “There was even a pair that nested near the Ziggurat Building (in Laguna Niguel). But you seldom see a nesting pair of golden eagles in Orange County today. In fact, I haven’t seen one for the last few years.”

Thomas is among environmentalists who worry about the native animals and plants that once thrived in Orange County’s warm coastal plains and nearby Santa Ana Mountains. Rapid urbanization in the past 40 years has severely changed the natural equation.

Today Orange County has the dubious distinction of being listed as the former home of much wildlife. The golden eagles, Thomas noted, have gone elsewhere. Even plants and flowers have retreated into other less crowded counties--if they have survived at all.

Jack Burk, another biology professor at Cal State Fullerton, said, “Three plants that formerly grew here are now completely extinct.” They are the San Fernando Valley spine flower, the Los Angeles sunflower, and the Ventura marsh milk vetch.

But 42 other plants indigenous to Orange County are now listed on the California Native Plants Society Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants.

One of those endangered survivors has a distinctive Orange County name: the Laguna Beach Dudleya.

“It grows only in the Laguna Beach area, and it’s very much an endangered plant,” Burk said. “It’s a beautiful succulent, kin to the cactus family, but not a cactus.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “people like to dig them up and take them home to try to grow them. The plant is highly endangered, and since many of the remaining plants are in Laguna Canyon, where more development is proposed, the danger for the plant grows worse.”

Environmentalists all but weep as they discuss another Orange County native flower: the Santa Ana River woolly star. C. Eugene Jones, a Cal State Fullerton biology professor, said he has made extensive studies of the rare, endangered flower.

“The woolly star no longer grows in Orange County,” Jones said. “Now it can only be found near Redlands. It used to grow along the Santa Ana River in Orange County, but once the river was channeled and cemented in, the plants became extinct in this county.”

Jones said the woolly star gets its name because the plant leaves and stem have a “sort of light hairiness” that faintly resembles wool. The mouth of its brilliant blue flower opens in the shape of stars.

“The flowers are strikingly beautiful--really magnificent,” Jones said. “It’s just a shame that they no longer grow here.”

Also once common in Orange County is the California least tern, a bird now on the endangered species list. Environmentalists hope that the bird will start reproducing again as some areas, including a portion of Huntington State Beach, are screened off to protect nesting sites. The rare species also nests in the uninhabited areas of the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. Red foxes, which were imported into California decades ago and which now run wild, have been devouring many of the least terns at Seal Beach, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Animal Lovers Volunteer Assn., a Huntington Beach-based group, has opposed killing the foxes. But a U.S. District Court judge on May 1 ruled that the foxes may be trapped and killed because they pose a danger to the least tern and to another rare species, the light-footed clapper rail.

Michael Horn, a Cal State Fullerton biology professor, said two other endangered birds once abundant here are the least Bell’s vireo and Belding’s savanna sparrow.

“I think a main cause is habitat destruction,” Horn said.

Thomas, who also is director of Cal State Fullerton’s Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary in Modjeska Canyon, said that pollution contributes to the threat against native birds, animals and plants in Orange County.

“I think the hummingbirds are an example of this,” he said. “You don’t see nearly as many hummingbirds in this county as before, and I believe it’s because of pollution. Those little birds already operate at the absolute limits of endurance. Their body temperature is 110 degrees, and the least amount of air pollution would hurt them.”

Burk and other environmentalists say public awareness of endangered species is important.

“If people learn the danger plants are having, maybe they won’t pick them or try to dig them up,” he said.

“There’s a logic, other than aesthetics, for keeping alive endangered species. We learn about many chemicals from plants as we study them, but once a plant is gone, there’s no way to re-create it. The potential value of a plant to humanity, to the world, must be considered. Some new medicines and drugs might come from plants as we continue to study them. They’re potential resources.”

But beauty alone is a strong reason to try to save disappearing species in Orange County, Thomas said.

“I’ve been here 20 years, and things have changed,” he said. “Once we had more hawks, more owls. I can remember when burrowing owls lived all over the undeveloped Irvine property. But now that property is covered by the city of Irvine, and of course there are no burrowing owls there now.

“Burrowing owls like flat, sandy-type soil. Unfortunately, that’s the same type of land that developers like to build houses on.”