Continued Trapping of Red Foxes Alleged : Wildlife: A photographer says she was warned of traps by a security guard who found her in the Ballona Wetlands area. An official of the firm that owns the property strongly denies the claim.

Despite strong denials, Maguire Thomas development firm appears to have continued trapping the Ballona Wetlands red foxes on the sly, according to a Playa del Rey resident.

Kathy Longinaker, a professional photographer, said she was photographing blue herons in the Ballona Wetlands between Playa del Rey and Marina del Rey early Thursday morning when she was informed by a Maguire Thomas security guard that traps set for red foxes made the area unsafe.

Nelson Rising, senior partner at Maguire Thomas, the company that owns the property, strongly denied that trapping is continuing. He also denied that the guard said anything to Longinaker about traps.

Longinaker said she was walking in the wetlands about 10:30 a.m. when she was approached by a security guard who told her that she was trespassing and must leave.

Longinaker said she explained that she was a nearby resident who walked through the area often to photograph herons and asked why she had to leave.

“He said, ‘Ma’am, it is for your own protection. There are traps out here. We are trapping red foxes,’ ” recalled Longinaker, who said she is a longtime bird-watching enthusiast and is not associated with any of the environmental or animal rights groups.

“I told him that I thought that the traps were supposed to have been gone, and he said he was told there were traps still out there,” Longinaker said.

Security guards held her till noon, then let her go when they decided not to press trespassing charges.

Animal rights activists on Wednesday afternoon protested in the lobby of the Playa Vista project building against what they alleged is the continued trapping and killing of the foxes.

In response to a protest on July 24, Rising earlier had denied that the trapping was continuing. His company owns the nearly 1,000 acres of land north of the Westchester Bluffs that includes the wetlands.

Rising said last week that all the padded-leg traps had been removed from the area the night of July 23, when a new zoo in Carson City, Nev., contacted them about taking two foxes for an exhibit. He added that trapping and euthanizing of the foxes with injections of sodium phenobarbital would not resume until after the two foxes were removed to the zoo.

Rising, who believes that Longinaker is with an animal rights group, said: “The trapping is not going on. I am sure (animal rights activists) will do something every day to find a way to keep up a campaign of harassment. And if their campaign is successful, then they will ruin these endangered species. It was my understanding that this woman was on the property and she was told she was trespassing and she wouldn’t leave. I was told that she was very difficult.”

Maguire Thomas assistant project partner Doug Gardener said the company has security guards working more hours at the wetlands since the controversy over the foxes began.

Longinaker said that, after the guard told her to leave, she walked about 100 yards down a path to leave the way she entered, when two more guards arrived to tell her again that she was trespassing. When she got back to her truck, parked at Culver and Jefferson boulevards, she said the guards started photographing her. She, in turn, started photographing them.

That was when she was placed under citizen’s arrest. Maguire Thomas officials acknowledged that Longinaker was held, but said they didn’t see the point in filing criminal charges for trespassing on private property, which is a misdemeanor.