Worries on the Wetlands : Environmental Groups Can’t Agree on the Fate of the Area’s Red Foxes

Two environmental groups have lined up on opposite sides of the ecological fence in the Ballona Wetlands between Marina del Rey and Playa del Rey.

The groups are embroiled in a face-off over state-approved trapping and killing of red foxes that biologists claim are decimating near-extinct birds and upsetting the wetland’s fragile ecosystem.

The Wildlife Protection League, while acknowledging that the foxes may pose a problem, argues that the animals should be neutered, caged on the wetlands, or relocated to another state or zoo. Friends of Ballona Wetlands say the foxes are destroying the wetlands and wants them removed by any means, even if it means killing them.

On Friday, the groups had an emotionally charged confrontation at the Ballona Wetlands and in front of the Playa Vista project headquarters of the developer, Maguire Thomas Partners. In 1989, the company bought the nearly 1,000 acres of open land north of the Westchester Bluffs, including the wetlands. Maguire Thomas authorized the trapping that began July 20 but suspended it late last week.

Each group displayed photographic evidence of their position: fox dens surrounded by bird carcasses and gruesome photographs of animals in steel-jawed traps. Yelling matches ensued.

Ruth Lansford, president of Friends of Ballona Wetlands, said her group is not opposed to saving the foxes and has suggested alternatives. “But 47 states wouldn’t take them. We wanted to cage them on the land and neuter them, but (the state Department of) Fish and Game wouldn’t allow it.�

She said that the foxes will destroy the ecosystem if they are not removed. “They are a threat to the Belding Savannah’s sparrow, a bird that is on the state endangered species list, and the least tern, also on the list. Fish and Game recommended that we get (the foxes) out.�

But Patricia MacPherson, a Sierra Club member who works with an organization that treats sick seabirds and is a proponent of saving the wetlands, thinks that the biological studies done on the foxes in the wetlands are inferior. A supporter of the Wildlife Protection League, she thinks birds are being destroyed more by man’s impact on the wetlands than by the foxes.

“All we want to see is some honest, legitimate research on the fox,� she said. The group would like to see studies done by Fish and Game on the foxes’ eating and other habits and “then we will call a spade a spade.�

She said trapping should be suspended until another solution can be found. “We have veterinarians who are willing to do the neutering and some states that might take (the foxes).�

Nelson Rising, a senior partner at Maguire Thomas, said the company two years ago tried to find a new home for the 18 foxes thought to be living in the wetlands. He said the company contacted 47 states and several zoos nationwide. When there was no welcome for the cat-size creatures, Rising said Animal Pest Management was hired to do what a dozen environmental groups and biologists had reportedly urged the company to do: kill the foxes to save the wetlands.

Exterminators are using padded-leg traps to capture the animals, which are then killed by lethal injection, Rising said. Three foxes have been killed so far, he said.

Trapping, however, was suspended Thursday night when a newly formed zoo in Carson City, Nev., contacted Maguire Thomas about taking two of the foxes. Rising, who hopes to persuade the zoo to take more foxes, said he will not authorize more trapping until the foxes are sent to Nevada. Although he hopes that another solution will be found before then, he is not optimistic after the company’s two-year search for a solution.

But Wildlife Protection League members and other animal rights activists think foxes are still being trapped. McPherson and Mary Sheehy, president of Wildlife Protection League, said they have seen Animal Pest Management trucks in the wetlands nearly every morning since July 23. They used binoculars to observe what appeared to be a man picking up traps. Rising said Animal Pest Management is there only to track the foxes’ movements.

Lining up on the side of Friends of Ballona Wetlands are Heal the Bay, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Joining the Wildlife Protection League are Last Chance for Animals, In Defense of Animals and Animal Emancipation.

According to a report released by the state Fish and Game Department in June, the red fox has posed a threat to ecosystems that run from the Ballona Wetlands down the coast to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Orange County. The report claims that the red fox is the greatest threat to ground-nesting birds, including those near extinction, such as the least terns, clapper rails and Belding Savannah’s sparrows.

The fox food list, according to the report, includes gnatcatchers, quail, avocets, snowy plovers, and even larger birds such as herons and egrets. At the El Segundo dunes near the Los Angeles Airport, foxes have wiped out 17 of the 20 varieties of snakes, lizards, rodents and mammals. The El Segundo blue butterfly and the horned lizard are extinct or rarely seen in the dunes due to the rapacious fox, the report states.

According to Sheehy, David MacDonald, a carnivore biologist at University of Tennessee, said the red fox’s preferred diet is rodents and mice. MacDonald has also said that removing a species from an area can lead to an increase in mice and other rodents, she said. “If it can be proven that the foxes are the only predators of these birds, then something should be done,� Sheehy said. Many residents who live nearby say the birds are starving to death because there is nothing for them to eat, she said, and because they get tangled in fishing line and die. “I don’t understand why everything that is a nuisance has to be trapped and killed,� she added.

Some argue the foxes should not be left in the wetlands because they are a not indigenous to the state.

But members of the Wildlife Protection League insist that without DNA studies, there is no proof that the red fox is a non-native

Larry Sitton, a wildlife management supervisor for the Department of Fish and Game, insists that foxes are not an indigenous species, based on records kept by naturalists since the 1850s.

Sitton endorsed the eradication of the red foxes in the Ballona Wetlands based on the recommendations of state Fish and Game biologists who worked in conjunction with a biologist from the Audubon Society on a plan to restore and preserve the ecosystem of the wetlands. Foxes were not in the equation.

Foxes were brought here from the East Coast, the South or the Midwest by the Irvine family for hunting around the turn of the century, Sitton said. “They eat everything, anything rotting,� he said, mainly rodents that keep the vegetation balanced. According to one Humboldt State University study, he said, 40% of the foxes’ diet is “garbage.�

“But their favorite food is animal tissue,� said Sitton, who notes that there were eight breeding pairs of Belding Savannah’s sparrows in February in the wetlands. “Now there is one pair.�

An environmental impact report report done in 1982 by the Natural History Museum indicated that there were no red foxes in the wetlands.

The story seems to be a familiar one up and down the coast. Federal wildlife managers from San Francisco to Orange County started trapping and killing red foxes in the mid-1980s because they were killing clapper rails and least terns. Fencing them or relocating them was not effective.

Rising said: “We have agonized over this, but I think our primary responsibility is to preserve the wetlands. We have spent a significant amount of time and money on this, and if anyone has a solution, we’d sure love to hear it.�

When Maguire Thomas Partners took over the open land between Marina del Rey and the Westchester Bluffs, it moved to settle a longstanding lawsuit by Friends of Ballona Wetlands that had blocked development of the massive Playa Vista project on much of the property.

To settle the controversy, Maguire Thomas agreed to preserve 260 acres of the wetlands as a permanent wildlife refuge and to pay $10 million to restore the area.

On the adjoining land, the company wants to build one of the largest developments in Los Angeles history--a city-within-a-city that would include more than 13,000 residential units, 5 million square feet of offices, more than 1,000 hotel rooms and a marina with slips for 750 boats. An environmental impact report on the project is being prepared.