Fox Trapped in Wetlands Escapes Cage : Environment: The animal, removed from the Bolsa Chica reserve because it threatens bird species, was facing death by lethal injection.

A red fox that had been trapped in the Bolsa Chica wetlands remains missing after chewing its way through a cage to escape from the home of a state biologist.

“If it hasn’t been run over by a car or killed by a dog or something, it’s probably wandering around somewhere in Garden Grove,” said Larry Sitton, regional director for the California Department of Fish and Game.

The fox was one of two trapped last week in the state’s controversial effort to protect endangered birds in the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. The two mark the first trappings of red foxes in the Bolsa Chica wetlands since the diminutive California least tern returned last month for its annual breeding season. They also represent the latest chapter in an ongoing controversy that has pitted various wildlife protection groups against one another.

The second fox is being held at a state laboratory in Sacramento and will be killed June 20 unless an out-of-state home is found.

The fugitive fox escaped from the home of Fish and Game biologist Esther Bukett near Magnolia Street and Chapman Avenue, Sitton said. It poses no threat to humans and probably could only harm a kitten or smaller animal, he said.

The state Department of Fish and Game and two resident activist groups are all concerned about protecting the tern, the Belding’s Savannah sparrow and other birds listed by the state as endangered. A single red fox, they say, could wipe out the entire tern population in Bolsa Chica, which makes up 10% of the entire species.

Fish and Game officials say that since the fox feeds on birds’ eggs, posing a critical threat to the existence of several species, it should be eradicated.

“It’s a terrible pest. We like to call them our furry termites,” said Sitton.

Amigos de Bolsa Chica, a citizens wildlife and environmental group, has drafted a letter supporting the Department of Fish and Game’s position concerning the fox, said Lorraine Faber, a spokeswoman for the group.

But the Downey-based Animal Lovers Volunteer Assn., while acknowledging the danger posed to the birds, calls the state’s trapping procedures “barbarous.”

The Fish and Game Department holds trapped foxes at its Sacramento laboratory for up to 30 days while new locations for the animals are sought. If none is found by the end of that holding period, the foxes are killed by lethal injection.

Hal Baerg of Huntington Beach, president of the Animal Lovers Volunteer Assn., said that two Southern California facilities are willing to accept the fox now held in Sacramento.

However, since ever-expanding numbers of red foxes are feeding on smaller endangered animals statewide, the Department of Fish and Game refuses to release a fox for permanent housing within the state, Sitton said.

Baerg said that the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society and the Wildlife Weigh Station in Tujunga both are willing to temporarily hold the fox until an out-of-state home can be found.

But Fish and Game officials refuse to turn over the animal in the interim because, said Sitton, the facilities have proven unreliable. Although both are state-licensed, he said, they have accepted red foxes in the past without providing documentation as to where they were being relocated, as the Fish and Game Department requires.