Drought Drives Wildlife to Neighborhoods : Animal control: Officials increase efforts to round up and return the creatures after parched conditions cause a suburban rise in the opossum and raccoon populations.

A dramatic increase in the number of 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 department’s North Hollywood shelter.

Phipps and Kroeplin blamed the increase on the lingering drought and the spread of housing into once wild canyons and hillsides. The large airlifts are unusual, but not unheard of, Phipps said.

But the extra airlifts are yet 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.

In June, officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said they were receiving increasing reports of ducks and geese flocking to swimming pools from Santa Clarita to Fullerton.

And for at least two years, homeowners in Encino, Tarzana and Malibu have complained about mule deer who defoliate flower beds, often favoring rose bushes and begonias.

Phipps said he trapped 113 coyotes in the San Fernando Valley during the fiscal year that ended June 30. That’s an increase of about 25% over the previous year. Coyotes have now taken to traveling the flood control channels and are showing up in unlikely areas, such as West Hills and Van Nuys, he said.

Other animal control agencies are responding to a growing number 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,” Susan Niemeyer, operations manager for the Pasadena Humane Society, said.

“It’s the dryness in the hills and the lack of food,” Niemeyer said. Still, it is normal during the late summer months for a large number 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 Angeles National Forest above Sunland.

“This won’t be a mad dash for freedom,” he said dryly 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 it responded to the call of the wild and left. The raccoons, however, tend to rocket to freedom.

Kroeplin recalled the time a raccoon ran out of its cage and jumped into the engine compartment of a helicopter. Kroeplin had to drag the squirming animal out by its tail.

On another memorable trip, “a raccoon opened up his cage and came right into the front seat there,” said Kroeplin, pointing to the passenger seat of his van. “I was on the freeway at the time.” Kroeplin managed to keep his van on the road while shooing the animal back into the cargo area.

On Friday, 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 replied: “They’re that dumb.”

And they aren’t overly graceful.

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

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

Times staff writer Benjamin Sullivan contributed to this story.