Sanctuary Gives Niche in Nature to Wildlife

It is an oasis, a thick, overgrown plot of land that is flanked by two freeways and a string of industrial parks.

It is also a refuge for thousands of birds that pause to feed, rest and nest on their migratory flights north and south.

And it is a reminder to all who walk in the Whittier Narrows Wildlife Sanctuary of a Southern California that long since has vanished in the blur of development.

Ten years ago, a coalition of environmental and nature groups successfully battled Los Angeles County to preserve a chunk of the Whittier Narrows wetlands and bush along the San Gabriel River.

One of Last Habitats

Today, nearly 50,000 people, many of them schoolchildren, visit the 277-acre sanctuary and its aging nature center each year. What they discover is one of the last habitats of its kind in the region.

Plants, small animals and birds found only in low-lying river basins flourish in the sanctuary sandwiched between Pico Rivera and South El Monte in county territory.

It was common years ago to spot a herd of mule deer or a bobcat in the sanctuary. But no more.

Freeways, fences and flood control channels now prevent larger animals from reaching the preserve bounded by Durfee Avenue, the San Gabriel River and Siphon Road. These days, squirrels, rabbits and other small critters have the run of the sanctuary.

Sharing Sanctuary

But they share it--with the birds, tens of thousands of birds that flock to the sanctuary’s four lakes, which are like safe harbors in a sea of concrete. Through the years, about 270 species have been identified in the habitat, including several rare and endangered species.

Come spring and fall, birds blanket the lakes as they touch down to rest before continuing north or south.

Naturalists say the importance of Whittier Narrows is its location--freeway-close to several million urbanites.

“Man needs some raw nature around to remind him of where he has come from,” said Jake Muller, president of the Whittier chapter of the National Audubon Society.

Bettie Pellett, treasurer of the Whittier Narrows Nature Center, believes the sanctuary offers something else.

“Solitude, a chance to recharge yourself away from the telephone, the microwave oven and traffic,” said the retired Montebello education consultant. “Take a walk there, and you feel like you’re miles from civilization.”

Sort of.

Sounds of Civilization

In the distance, the steady hum of traffic on the Pomona and San Gabriel River freeways can be heard from almost every clearing. Against an often smoggy backdrop, dozens of high-voltage lines crisscross the fenced sanctuary.

And there is evidence that visitors tote more than cameras and binoculars into the area, which can be entered only at the nature center or by special arrangement through several chained gates along Durfee.

Beer cans, candy wrappers and wine bottles are often pitched in shady spots around the sanctuary’s lakes. Bicycles and horses, both banned from the habitat, have also left telltale marks from time to time on the sandy trails.

But Bill Burrall, chairman of a Whittier Narrows support group that leads nature walks for schoolchildren, believes the wear andtear on the sanctuary is the trade-off for trying to maintain a wildlife habitat in a heavily urbanized region.

The alternative, he said, is to pave it over and “remember it all in pictures and books.”

Water has always been plentiful in Whittier Narrows.

The area is a natural flood basin where the water table is relatively high and the soil rich, ideal for lush stream-side plant growth.

A pair of rivers, the San Gabriel and the Rio Hondo, flow through the basin. They nearly converge as they pass through a narrow gap where the Montebello Hills and Puente Hills come together south of the sanctuary.

Hence the name, Whittier Narrows.

The Gabrieleno Indians were the first to settle among the area’s wild elderberry bushes and oak trees that still dominate the landscape today.

Then came the first white settlers in the late 1880s, who Burrall said were “astonished by the abundance of birds.”

Sanctuary Created

To carve out a permanent niche for wildlife, the Audubon Society in 1939 purchased about 100 acres of land on the west bank of the San Gabriel River and established a sanctuary.

Rapid development downstream, however, prompted the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s to build the Whittier Narrows Dam, and the basin behind the dam became a 1,000-acre playground for boaters, skeet shooters and horseback riders which is known today as the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area.

The federal government owned the land, but it was managed by the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation, which in 1970 also acquired control of the Audubon wildlife sanctuary.

Four years later, however, environmental and nature groups closed ranks when the county announced plans to dredge one of the basin’s lakes that had been fenced off to the public and stock it for fishing.

Conservationists filed a lawsuit, claiming that the lake was an important nesting site for birds that would be disturbed if it was opened for fishing.

A costly court battle loomed, but was avoided when the county and the Corps of Engineers agreed to double the size of the wildlife sanctuary south of Durfee and add to it three lakes in exchange for the new fishing hole near Legg Lake.

Looking back, Burrall said, “That’s probably the best thing that could have happened because we got this place protected, once and for all.”

Today, the county spends nearly $300,000 a year to operate Whittier Narrows and six other nature centers from coastal Malibu to the high desert near Palmdale.

Whittier Narrows’ annual share from the county is about $73,200, enough to employ a full-time county ranger and a maintenance man and to make minor repairs to the nature center, said Joe Prather, chief planner for the county Parks Department.

Beyond that, ranger Dean Harvey, a 14-year veteran of Whittier Narrows, must make do with volunteers and private donations.

Last year, for example, Harvey estimates that people convicted of drunk driving worked more than 1,000 hours clearing dead and overgrown brush from sanctuary trails as part of the county’s alternative sentencing program.

Not Enough

Still, it’s not enough, said Harvey, who doubles as a peace officer issuing about 50 citations a year to trespassers and poachers who slip into the sanctuary to hunt or damage the habitat.

What is needed, Harvey said, is a new nature center, which would cost about $1 million.

The current center is simply a converted house, and an old one at that. It is cramped and poorly lighted--many of the animal exhibits are hard to see.

There are no classrooms and no space to adequately rehabilitate or care for injured or abandoned wildlife. Nature lectures must be held on the center’s front porch, a problem when the weather turns sour during the winter.

No Money for New Center

Tucked in the back of the center is Harvey’s office. It looks like a camp director’s quarters, with bird sketches on the walls and several stuffed animals perched on a rusty file cabinet--including a great egret, a white bird standing nearly three feet high.

The office is dark and has that musty smell of a log cabin high in the mountains. Harvey, a quiet, no-nonsense type, acknowledges that he would gladly swap his cozy confines for a shiny new nature center.

But there’s a hitch--money.

The sanctuary’s support group, Whittier Narrows Nature Center Associates, can’t help. They are having enough trouble just raising $17,000 for a high-powered tractor mower needed for brush removal around the center and sanctuary.

And what about the county coming to the rescue?

“It’s doubtful any money will be appropriated for a nature center in the near future,” Prather said.

In the past, the park planner said, the county has tapped state and federal sources to finance construction. But he adds, “With budget cuts on all levels, most of those monies are now drying up.”

It is in the schoolchildren’s eyes that Harvey sees the value of his work.

They come by the busloads, many from the inner city where the great outdoors is a patch of grass next to an asphalt playground.

“To them, this place is a jungle,” said Harvey, standing near one of the trail heads leading into the sanctuary.

“They start looking behind every bush, every tree for bears and even lions. Before you know their asking, ‘Will they bite? Should we run?’ For some of ‘em, this is the closest they’ve ever been to nature.”

That’s why, Harvey believes, the sanctuary is more than a temporary retreat, a place waiting for the right builder with enough money to change it.

“This should always remain,” he said, “so our kids and our kids’ kids will have a place to walk in the wilds.”