Trapper Awaits Word to Catch Freeway Foxes

Wildlife officials said Thursday they will try to remove a family of red foxes, probably this morning, from their home along a new stretch of the Costa Mesa Freeway.

Officials with the California Department of Fish and Game said they had hoped to capture the nine foxes--two adults, a yearling and six pups about 6 weeks old--on Thursday night, but one of the trappers, a federal employee of the Department of Agriculture, needed to get permission first from his supervisors.

“We’re waiting for word,” said Larry Sitton, wildlife management supervisor for the state Fish and Game office in Long Beach. “He needs authorization. It probably will come, but it’s one of those little things that gets in the way.”

When captured, the foxes will be taken to a new home at the Los Angeles Zoo.

The animals have become a cause celebre since they were discovered last week. Hundreds of people have called the state agency and begged them to move the foxes to a safe place before the freeway stretch opens, which is scheduled for Tuesday.

Fish and Game officials originally planned to leave the foxes where they are and let them decide where to move when traffic begins, since they have lived safely near freeways all of their lives. But outraged animal lovers put pressure on Gov. Pete Wilson, who directed the agency to relocate them.

Red foxes, which are not native to California, cannot be safely put in the wild anywhere in the state, since they prey on endangered birds and other animals, including Orange County’s least terns and clapper rails. Since no other state will take them, the only other choice is the zoo.

Digging the foxes out of their three dens on the shoulder of the freeway and capturing them will be a challenge, since the animals are agile and smart, especially the male, which has been trapped before as part of a research project and probably learned his lesson.

“It will be risky,” said Ron Jurek, endangered-species biologist at the Department of Fish and Game in Sacramento.