Wildlife Damage Control wanted to publish this paper on our website as the what occurred in California has already occurred here in Massachusetts in 1996. Since the bills were remarkably similar, which comes as no surprise given that the same group was responsible for both ballot initiatives, the arguments against the California bill also apply against the Massachusetts bill.
We have endeavored to provide the whole text unedited. We hope that rational and well meaning people interested in the complexities of animal management will take the time to read these thoughtful words.
For more information on Question 1 and its impact on Massachusetts see the following links
Wildlife Protection Act Referendum in Massachusetts
Critique of the Natural Resources Committee Report on Question 1
A tool to protect threatened and endangered species in California is threatened with becoming endangered itself! The "ProPAW" initiative measure (Proposition 4) will appear on California’s November 1998 ballot. If approved by the voters it would make it "unlawful for any person, including employees of the federal, state, county or municipal government, to use or authorize the use of any steel-jawed leghold trap, padded or otherwise, to capture any game mammal, fur-bearing mammal, non-game mammal, protected mammal, or any dog or cat." The initiative would prohibit the use of padded leghold traps, used by wildlife managers to protect endangered species and other vulnerable wildlife from mammalian predators.
Banning padded leghold traps would eliminate the most humane, selective, and effective means of capturing non-native red foxes. Padded leghold traps, also called "soft catch" traps, can be set to the target species’ size and weight, thereby reducing the likelihood of capturing pets and non-target wildlife species. Using padded leghold traps is a "live-trap" capture method, which usually does not injure the captured animal. Traps are checked daily as required by California law. Target species can be humanely euthanized or re-located. Non-target species, which are inadvertently and infrequently caught, are released unharmed. If a lost pet is caught it can be taken to the animal shelter to be reunited with its owner. Animals caught in padded leghold traps usually do not exhibit signs of stress; a trapped animal is often found asleep or at rest (Wildlife Services personnel, pers. com.).
Padded leghold traps are considered essential in managing non-native red foxes to protect threatened and endangered species. Cage or box-type traps are not effective in capturing red foxes (USFWS, SFBNWRC unpubl. data) . This is because red foxes are shy of new structures and human odors in their environment, and are therefore reluctant to enter a visible object such as a cage. Conversely, padded leghold traps are concealed under a thin layer of soil, which also masks any human odor, and can be treated with a scent that attracts red fox.
In comparing red fox capture rates in cage traps vs. padded leghold traps, Lewis et. al (1998) found that the time it took to capture a red fox was three to nine times greater when using cage traps than padded leghold traps. In situations where foxes are preying on endangered species, wildlife managers cannot afford the time to use less effective capture methods. Predation must be curtailed as soon as possible. An entire colony’s or population’s nests could be destroyed if an animal is allowed to predate endangered birds for one or two extra nights.
The disadvantages of other trapping methods, such as snares and conibear traps, is that they are less selective and/or lethal, and therefore pose more threats to non-target wildlife, including the endangered species that wildlife managers are aiming to protect.
If padded leghold traps are banned, many populations of threatened and endangered species in California will likely suffer population declines and decreased reproductive success. Extinctions of local populations or species is probable.
The non-native red fox is considered a direct threat to the following threatened or endangered species: California clapper rail, light-footed clapper rail, California least tern, western snowy plover, Belding’s savannah sparrow, salt marsh harvest mouse, and the San Joaquin kit fox. It may also present a threat to the native Sierra Nevada red fox (a state listed species) by competing for available habitat, interbreeding, or transmitting diseases.
Non-native red foxes were introduced in California for fur farming and fox hunting. Their prolific reproduction, adaptability, and dispersal abilities have resulted in an almost continuous distribution throughout the lowland and coastal areas west of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges . Red foxes adapt well to human landscapes such as agricultural fields, parks, golf courses, levees, flood control channels, power lines and other corridors where they prey upon native species. Their increasing numbers and expanding range have impacted many threatened, endangered and other native species. Ground nesting and colonial species are particularly vulnerable to red fox predation. Native species did not evolve with this newly introduced predator, and therefore have few defensive responses. Urban encroachment has reduced the amount of habitat for many endangered/threatened species, concentrating them in small refuges around the coast, making them even more vulnerable to predation.
Recovery of most threatened and endangered species depend on an mix of habitat restoration, land acquisition, protection from human disturbance, and integrated predator management techniques, which include predator barriers (fences) and predator removal. Eliminating one of these tools, such as padded leghold traps, can jeopardize recovery efforts.
Found only in San Francisco Bay, the California clapper rail was listed as endangered in 1970; early declines were attributable to habitat loss. In 1980 the rail population was estimated at 1500 birds, with 80% concentrated in south San Francisco Bay. By 1991 the south bay population had dropped to less than 300 birds. Biologists found that predation of rail eggs and adults, largely by non-native predators, was a major factor causing this decline. In particular, the non-native red fox (a recent arrival to the bay area) was determined to have caused this most recent decline in the rail population. Fragmentation of south San Francisco Bay by levees and urbanization provides travel corridors into sensitive wildlife habitats that were previously inaccessible to both non-native and native predators.
In 1991 the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Complex completed a predator management plan and environmental assessment, and began selectively removing problem predators in marshes critical to California clapper rails and in important western snowy plover nesting areas. Several methods are used to capture and remove predators, but padded leghold traps are the primary method of removing red foxes.
Since predator management began, California clapper rail numbers have increased dramatically. The south bay population has more than doubled since 1991’s dismal levels to approximately 650 birds. Some individual marshes are approaching pre-red fox arrival numbers. The Dumbarton Marsh rail population plummeted from 173 birds in 1981 to 8 in 1991. Rail surveys at Dumbarton since 1991 document the effects of predator management: 1992 (45 rails), 1993 (87 rails), 1997 (91 rails) (SFBNWRC, unpubl. data).
The second largest sub-population of the endangered light-footed clapper rail was nearly wiped out on the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge in southern California by an explosion of non-native red foxes. An obvious clue to a problem was when more foxes than rails were observed during a high tide rail survey in 1984! Seven foxes were counted, and by the following year only two rails could be found during each of two high tide counts. (In the early 1970s, before the fox invasion, there were 100-200 light-footed clapper rails at Seal Beach NWR.)
The Refuge had tried using cage traps to control red fox between 1980 and 1984. Only 3 was juvenile foxes, and no adults, were captured during five years of effort. Clearly, cage traps did not work for red foxes; they by-passed them and continued to prey on clapper rails. Padded leghold traps were used beginning in 1986, and by 1989 (4 years of effort), 275 red foxes had been removed from the NWR and environs . The rails responded immediately to such a release in predation pressure, with 60 being counted in 1989. Far smaller numbers of foxes were trapped thereafter, and by 1992 the highest single rail count ever recorded on Seal Beach NWR was made: 159 light-footed clapper rails on October 26, 1992.
High predation has significantly decreased breeding success of the threatened western snowy plover. Red fox predation has been documented as the primary cause of its decline in central and coastal California. At Salinas River National Wildlife Refuge, a combined program of intense monitoring, constructing predator exclosures around individual snowy plover nests, and predator control is essential in improving reproductive success and protecting plovers. Installing exclosures alone is not enough. Exclosures protected eggs and incubating adults, increasing nesting success (number of eggs hatched). However, until predator trapping began, fledgling success (the number of surviving chicks) remained low, and predators continued to devour alarming numbers of adults. This is because chicks leave the protection of exclosures within hours after hatching, and adults often move out of exclosures if alarmed, falling prey to red fox and other predators.
Tern experts consider predation to be the most serious current threat to species survival and recovery . Foxes prey on eggs and young, and stress adult birds during critical nesting periods. The fate of the once-thriving Oakland Airport California least tern colony is a grim example of how quickly red fox can destroy a breeding colony. In 1990 the Oakland Airport (which did not conduct predator management) lost all of its tern nests to the newly arrived red fox. California least terns have not nested at Oakland Airport since. Currently, there are no red fox at the Alameda least tern colony site (within the proposed Alameda NWR), located just six miles north of the Oakland Airport. The US Navy has conducted predator management at this site, including use of padded leghold traps, since the early 1980s. Continued success of the Alameda colony, the only nesting colony remaining in the San Francisco Bay area, depends on continued predator management.
Seal Beach NWR uses a combination of trapping and fencing to protect least terns from predation; but fencing alone is not enough. In 1988, foxes penetrated the electric fence surrounding the 3-acre nesting area and took 44 of the 69 California least tern nests. A predator management program was initiated at Seal Beach NWR in response to decreased nesting success and population size of the California least terns from red fox predation. Biologists found buried eggs cached by red foxes and documented low fledgling to pair ratios during periods when red foxes were in the area. California least tern populations have increased steadily since red fox removal, currently numbering 150 pairs.
Other migratory birds, which National Wildlife Refuges are mandated to protect, are impacted by red fox predation. In 1991 all nests at the Bair Island heron and egret rookery, located in south San Francisco Bay, were destroyed by the newly arrived red fox. The rookery, once numbering approximately 500 nests, was subsequently abandoned. In 1990 a Caspian tern colony in south San Francisco Bay was destroyed by red foxes and subsequently abandoned. Numerous other ground nesting birds are also taken by red fox and other mammalian predators.
The above successes in protecting and increasing populations of endangered and threatened species could not have been achieved without the use of padded leghold traps. If they are banned, populations of certain endangered and threatened species would decline, some could become extinct, and other species that are on the brink could be listed. Predator management is a principal component of managing and protecting endangered species on many National Wildlife Refuges, and other public and private lands, in California. Effective predator management depends on an array of tools including padded leghold traps, cage traps, fencing, and habitat management being available to selectively and humanely deal with each unique situation.
Padded leghold traps are the most effective, selective, and humane tool available to protect endangered/threatened species from certain species of predators. They have several advantages over other control methods. One advantage is the fact that they work. Other live trapping techniques are ineffective in capturing red foxes and coyotes. Another advantage is their selectivity; non-target species are infrequently captured (SFBNWRC unpubl. data). Padded leghold traps can be set to go off only if stepped on by an animal of the correct weight, and they can also be baited with scents attractive to some species but not others. They can be therefore be placed in endangered species habitat, and thus will affect only those individuals of target species who are actively hunting endangered species. Another advantage of padded leghold traps is that they are humane. They detain an animal alive and generally uninjured; if an animal which is not a threat to the endangered species is caught, it can be released unharmed.
Wildlife managers across the country were recently contacted regarding possible alternative trapping methods for red fox, and no one could suggest a more humane, selective or effective method than padded leghold traps. The Endangered Species Act directs that measures be taken to ensure that species do not become extinct, so predator management will need to continue even if padded leghold traps are banned. Wildlife managers would then be forced to use other methods to control problem predators that would cause more harm to wildlife species.
References
Caffrey, Carolee. 1995. Characteristics of California Least Tern Nesting Sites Associated With Breeding Success or Failure, With Special Reference to the Site at the Naval Air Station, Alameda. Unpubl. report. Naval Facilities Engineering Command. San Bruno, CA.
Lewis, J.C., K.L. Sallee, R.T. Golightly. 1998. Social and Biological Aspects of Non-Native Red Fox Management in California. Unpubl. paper presented at Vertebrate Pest Conference March 2-4, 1998. Costa Mesa, CA.
US Fish and Wildlife Service. 1990. Final Environmental Impact Statement Endangered Species Management and Protection Plan Naval Weapons Station - Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge. USFWS Portland, OR and US Navy, Seal Beach, CA.
US Fish and Wildlife Service. 1991. San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Predator Management Plan and Final Environmental Assessment. San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Newark, CA.
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