COUNTYWIDE : Wildlife Tracker to Discuss Red Foxes

A wildlife tracker who helped capture the Costa Mesa Freeway fox family will discuss the movement of the furry predators throughout Southern California at a July 17 talk at Newport Dunes.

Jeff Lewis, a graduate student from Humboldt State University, has worked for several years with the California Department of Fish and Game to track red foxes in Orange County using radio transmitters.

In April, Lewis and a federal trapper led the state’s controversial efforts to capture a fox family living alongside a new stretch of the Costa Mesa Freeway that was about to open to traffic.

State Fish and Game biologists had intended to leave the foxes in their den because they are urban creatures skilled at dodging traffic, but the mother fox and six pups were removed because the agency was deluged with more than 1,000 calls from people who wanted them rescued.

Lewis and others spent three days and nights trying to trap the creatures in their den. They were eventually captured and taken to the Los Angeles Zoo and the Orange County Zoo.

Red foxes, which were imported to Newport Beach by hunters and are not native to California, prey upon rare birds at the county’s wetlands, and state officials want them monitored to protect the birds. Lewis’ tracking has shown that red foxes are coming close to Upper Newport Bay, which is home to clapper rails and an endangered marsh bird, as well as other rare species.

Admission to the 7 p.m. talk is $2.25. For more information, call (714) 640-6746.