State Seeks Ways to Recoup $25,000 Cost of Saving Foxes

Capturing a family of foxes whose presence threatened to delay the opening of a section of freeway in Costa Mesa cost the California Department of Fish and Game about $25,000 by tying up 33 state officials on the project, including many of the agency’s top administrators in Sacramento, according to an estimate calculated Thursday by state officials.

Pete Bontadelli, director of the Fish and Game agency, said he is trying to find a way to reimburse the financially strapped state agency for the cost of removing the fox family, which captured the attention of animal lovers and legislators last week.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for the general taxpayers of California or those who buy hunting and fishing licenses to pay for it,” Bontadelli said in an interview.

Fish and Game officials in the Southern California office, already hard-pressed by budget deficits and staffing shortages, said they had to delay other wildlife projects that they believe are more critical so they could remove a mother fox and her six kits from the embankment.

The $25,000 estimate was calculated by adding up the 145 hours spent on the foxes by the state agency’s employees between April 15, when the dens were found by a construction worker, and Tuesday, two days after the family was captured, said Fish and Game spokesman Curt Taucher. About 65% of that cost is for salaries and about 35% for employee overhead.

“That’s a big price tag,” Taucher said, adding that the figure is probably conservative because it includes only salaries.

The estimate does not include expenses by other agencies involved--Caltrans, the California Highway Patrol, the Costa Mesa Police Department and Orange County Animal Control. Caltrans officials said Thursday that their cost was negligible.

It also excludes work by Jeff Lewis, a Humboldt State University student on contract with the agency, who donated about 100 hours of his time, or other volunteers such as veterinarians.

Fish and Game wildlife managers and biologists in the Long Beach office wanted to leave the fox family where it was found.

They said that the foxes have lived along Southern California’s freeways for years without being run over and that the mother probably could have safely moved her 12-week-old kits to a new den.

But the agency was pressured by animal rights groups and legislators, especially Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who wanted the foxes moved to a safer place. Its Long Beach office received up to 1,000 phone calls about the animals after a TV station urged people to call.

“I have real problems with the cost of this as everyone does,” said Bontadelli. “But at the same time, the issue was basically a highly publicized group of foxes and the decision to leave them alone was unacceptable to a lot of people.”

The section of the Costa Mesa Freeway opened to traffic as scheduled on Tuesday, two days after the fox family was moved to the Los Angeles Zoo.