See the Quick Red Fox Wipe Out the Sparrow : Nature: Activists forget that saving a few predators means the loss of whole species.

The passion displayed by protesters hoping to save the red foxes in the Ballona Wetlands from euthanasia is to be admired for its sincerity, but it has been taken to extremes. No one can applaud the deliberate killing of a handsome little animal. But no one can condone the vandalism and harassment, reportedly including threats of violence, against humans seeking the foxes’ removal from the wetlands in Playa del Rey.

The irony is that the people identifying themselves as animal activists do not realize the terrible toll the red fox is exacting on other wildlife in the wetlands.

First, it should be understood that the red fox is not native to California. It was introduced by thoughtless people and has thrived. It can mate when less than a year old and may have a litter of five pups.

The appearance of a family of foxes in a wildlife sanctuary like Ballona Wetlands signals an alarming decrease in bird populations. A rare subspecies that nests in Ballona, the Belding’s savannah sparrow, has become a prime victim of the red fox.

The question arises, if predation is a law of nature, why should we object to the fox doing what comes naturally? But birds and other creatures have evolved over vast periods of time and have learned to survive with their native predators. When a non-native predator is introduced, the prey species have no natural defenses.

Endangered California least terns in Ventura and Oakland, snowy plovers in Monterey and San Francisco, avocets and stilts at Moss Landing, kit foxes in the San Joaquin Valley--all have suffered severe losses to the red fox. This has long concerned the California Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Both agencies have tried for years to control the fox. At the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, an electric fence was built to protect a small area where the least tern was nesting. Foxes burrowed under the fence and took eggs from 44 of the 69 nests in the colony.

The agencies have considered neutering the fox, but the difficulty of capturing so many animals and the enormous expenditure of scarce time and money have made them decide against it. And neutering will not prevent a fox from continuing its depredations for the rest of its life, which may be many years. Another possibility is capture and relocation. Again, the expense is prohibitive. And where would they be released? California law forbids relocation of the foxes anywhere in the state, and no other state will accept them.

The state and federal agencies have come to the reluctant conclusion that only trapping and death by injection is the solution to the red fox problem. The Seal Beach refuge harbored one of the few remaining colonies of the endangered light-footed clapper rail. When the red fox arrived, it was not long before the rails were almost entirely eliminated. When the euthanasia program was begun in 1986, fewer than 10 rails were counted; in 1991, there were 98.

The agencies do not expect to wipe out the red fox in California. They will be satisfied if it can be cleared out of open habitat and protected sanctuaries so that native species can survive and increase.

The animal-rights people are passionate in their respect for life--all life. But they are undiscriminating sentimentalists, seeing no difference between rare and endangered natives and the misplaced red fox.

Scientists are alarmed at the prospect of extinction for hundreds of species. Choices have to be made. Unclaimed strays at city pounds are destroyed every day. This is regrettable, but the alternative is millions of unwanted cats and dogs and nowhere to put them. Is it too much to hope that closed minds may be opened by an understanding of the real dilemma that wildlife faces on a scale vastly greater than that of the red fox and the Ballona Wetlands?