Animal-Rights Activist Convicted of Phone Threat : Court: Peggy Randall’s profanity-laden call was part of a dispute between two wildlife groups over the fate of red foxes in the Ballona Wetlands.

An animal-rights activist involved in the bitter dispute over the fate of the red foxes at the Ballona Wetlands has been convicted of making a threatening telephone call to the leader of a rival environmental group.

Peggy Randall, 56, of Sepulveda was ordered by West Los Angeles Municipal Judge Anita Dymant to pay a $150 fine plus $255 in penalty assessment fees after she was found guilty Friday of one count of making annoying or threatening telephone calls. The offense is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and a jail sentence of six months.

Randall, the former vice president of the Wildlife Protection League, made the telephone call to Ruth Lansford, chairwoman of the Friends of Ballona Wetlands, July 24. In the profanity-laden call left on the Friends of Ballona Wetlands answering machine, Randall identified herself, then threatened to beat Lansford “from one end of the Ballona Wetlands to the other” and to “stop” the organized nature walks for groups that Lansford guides.

Deputy City Atty. Teddy Eden, who handled the case, said the guilty verdict was returned by a jury after one hour of deliberation at the end of a four-day trial.

In addition to imposing the fine, Dymant also placed Randall on 18 months summary probation, which prohibits her from calling Lansford or the Friends of Ballona Wetlands’ answering machine, Eden said.

Dana Cole, the attorney representing Randall, said: “We’re disappointed in the verdict because we felt the primary issue that prompted Peggy to make the call did not get before the jury: the senseless slaughter of these foxes. One harassing call is never prosecuted, and for some reason this one was.”

According to Cole, Randall testified that she had called Lansford that day to try to reason with her about the foxes, but that when she heard a taped message on the Friends of Ballona Wetlands answering machine announcing the postponement of the nature walks, she concluded that Lansford was postponing the walks so the trapping--and subsequent killing, in most cases--of the foxes could proceed. Cole said that Randall then became enraged and left the angry message on the machine.

The Friends of Ballona Wetlands traditionally postpone their walks during the latter part of the summer, Lansford said.

After Randall’s call, Lansford received three more harassing telephone calls from unidentified individuals on July 29, in which callers threatened to “take a knife” to her heart, “kill” her and “slice” off her head. Lansford reported the telephone calls to police after she received them.

The contentious face-off between the two organizations began July 20, when the trapping was authorized by Maguire Thomas Partners, the Los Angeles-based development company that owns nearly 1,000 acres of open land north of the Westchester Bluffs that includes the wetlands.

The Wildlife Protection League asserts that the fox is indigenous and is not harming the bird and mammal population native to the wetlands. The Friends of Ballona Wetlands contend that the fox is non-native and is destroying the wetlands ecosystem and threatening endangered birds.

Maguire Thomas officials have declined to disclose the status of the wetlands foxes or to give details of the trapping program. As of early October, about 25 foxes had been removed since the beginning of trapping. Ten were relocated, three were hit by cars and the remainder are believed to have been euthanized.