Efforts to Trap Wild Animals Stepped Up

A dramatic increase in the number of wild animals wandering from parched hillsides into urban neighborhoods for food and water has prompted animal regulation officials to step up efforts to trap and return the creatures to the wild.

“It’s been a bumper year for opossums,” said Dennis Kroeplin, a city wildlife control officer, who has relocated more than 1,600 opossums trapped in the San Fernando Valley this year.

“I’ve never caught so many opossums before,” said Kroeplin, as he prepared to release his latest load Friday in the San Gabriel Mountains. His van was loaded with 32 grunting and hissing opossums and seven stoically silent raccoons.

Twice a month, the city’s six animal shelters from Chatsworth to San Pedro bring wild animals to Van Nuys Airport, where they are taken by helicopter to remote areas, often near Pyramid Lake in northern Los Angeles County.

The Department of Animal Regulation started the airlifts in 1969 and usually ferries about 30 to 40 animals each trip. But this year, up to 90 animals--opossums, raccoons, snakes and an occasional fox--are being airlifted each time, said Lt. James Phipps of the North Hollywood shelter.

Phipps and Kroeplin blamed the increase on the lingering drought and the spread of new housing tracts into once wild canyons and hills.

The extra airlifts are another example of how drought and development have made wild animals and humans uncomfortable neighbors. Recently, bears have been raiding the snack bar almost nightly at Pyramid Lake, ripping open food lockers in search of hamburger patties and ice cream.

Phipps said he trapped 113 coyotes in the San Fernando Valley during the last year. That’s an increase of about 25% over the previous year. Coyotes have taken to traveling the flood control channels and are showing up in unlikely venues such as West Hills and Van Nuys, he said.

Other animal control agencies are responding to growing numbers of complaints about wild animals drinking from swimming pools or gobbling up food left outside for pets.

In Pasadena, opossums, raccoons and skunks have descended on the city “by the droves,” said Susan Niemeyer, operations manager for the Pasadena Humane Society.

“It’s the dryness in the hills and the lack of food,” Niemeyer said. Still, it is normal during the late summer months for large numbers of animals to travel down from the hills, she said.

A scheduled airlift from Van Nuys airport was scrubbed Friday for mechanical repairs, so Kroeplin loaded up raccoons and opossums collected from the San Fernando Valley’s two shelters and drove to a secluded canyon in the Angeles National Forest above Sunland.

“This won’t be a mad dash for freedom,” he observed as he prepared to release the first opossums of the day.

He was right. Opossums are not swift creatures, and although they may not be dumber than a box of rocks, they are not a whole lot smarter.

When Kroeplin opened the cage door, the opossums just stared ahead before slowly padding away. Some of the marsupials didn’t leave until Kroeplin shook the cage. One critter took a full 30 seconds before leaving. The raccoons, however, tend to rocket to freedom.

He released the animals far from the mountain road for their own protection. “They’re liable to go right up to the road and get killed,” he said of the opossums.

They’re that dumb?

With a slight nod, Kroeplin said: “They’re that dumb.”

Nor are they overly graceful.

After freeing the animals, Kroeplin heard a rustling of leaves in a nearby tree and looked up to see an opossum plummet from a high branch like an overripe avocado.

The opossum righted itself, regained its bearings and waddled off into the dry riverbed.

Also contributing to this story was Times staff writer Benjamin Sullivan.