Audubon Society’s First Urban Nature Center to Be in L.A.

The Audubon Society knows that no animal is more urbanized than a bird, whether it’s a red-tailed hawk checking the scene from a telephone pole in Watts or a parrot in Pasadena squawking neighbors into a fury at dawn.

With that in mind, the national bird-lovers’ group will announce plans today to build its first urban nature center in Los Angeles County--among grasslands and a grove of walnut trees just northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Yes, there is wilderness in East L.A.

“This is the first, and our premier, urban nature site,” said John Flicker, president of the National Audubon Society. “Birds are the most visible wildlife. And you can see more species of birds in L.A. County than almost any other county in the nation.”

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to lease a 16-acre parcel for the nature center within the 282-acre Ernest Debs Regional Park near Montecito Heights. The space--grazed and open since the rancho era--hosts more than 130 species of birds and provides a scenic southern flank for commuters along the Pasadena Freeway. Park users can hike, fish and enjoy views from downtown to the snow-capped San Gabriels.

In the last two years, the city parks department has been trying to figure out ways to draw more people to the area and decided the Audubon Society--with half a million members nationwide--could bring the necessary resources to do that.

“This is real open space,” said Gene Dudley, director of real estate for the Department of Parks and Recreation. “It’s a nice inner-city resource that is not utilized like it could be.”

The Audubon Society hopes to make the land more accessible to residents in Highland Park by creating a new entrance and a network of trails leading up from the freeway area. Currently the only designated access to the park is on the ridge along Monterey Road, in a pricier, more suburban-feeling neighborhood.

The group is trying to raise $15.5 million for the project and hopes to complete the center--with an amphitheater, nature exhibits and a hummingbird garden--by 2003. The 10,000-square-foot facility will sit in a grassy bowl at the bottom of the park, along the Arroyo Seco, essentially connecting the neighborhoods of northeast L.A. with places like El Sereno.

“With the Audubon Center, we will be expanding the other side of the park,” said City Councilman Mike Hernandez, whose office worked to create the partnership with the nonprofit. “This will be seen as a nature classroom.”

Audubon will also work with the city to improve areas throughout the park by removing weeds and planting native vegetation.

So far, Audubon members have raised $4.6 million, while introducing themselves to dubious neighbors who have never heard of the group.

“We’ve been around for a hundred years,” said Melanie Ingalls, director of Audubon California. “But we say our name and get a blank stare.”

Ingalls said the local Audubon chapter, which moved into a storefront office in Highland Park in 1998, takes as many as 3,000 local kids every year to visit the Ballona Wetlands in Playa del Rey. The new park signals a change in approach.

“Instead of bringing the kids to the experience,” she said, “we’re going to bring the experience to the kids.”

Ingalls said she was driving through Elysian Park, scouting the city for sites, when she spotted the hills of Debs Park across the Golden State Freeway. She eventually picked the site because far more natural habitat existed for birds, butterflies and other animals.

The national group’s move into the city comes at a time when the environmental movement, after years of criticism for ignoring poor people, is reevaluating its strategies and devoting more money to urban areas. Groups like Sierra Club, Trust for Public Land and Environmental Defense have all begun efforts to restore open space along the Los Angeles River and tributaries like the Arroyo Seco.

The Audubon Society operates about 15 nature centers nationwide, mostly in suburban places such as Marin County or rural preserves like Corkscrew Swamp in Florida. The group is planning to open almost 50 more, half in city centers.

The second urban facility will be in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

Whereas millions of people use that park already, Flicker said, the Los Angeles Nature Center will provide a gateway to a natural hillside that is little noticed and underused.

The park is almost empty on weekdays: a lone fisherman at the pond on the hill, a tattooed jogger and his Rottweiler. On Wednesday, it was quiet enough for Flicker and Ingalls to spot a northern mockingbird, a lesser goldfinch and a yellow-rumped warbler (commonly known as a butter butt).

“This is just one of those enclaves in L.A. that people don’t think of as L.A.,” said Nicole Possert, deputy director of the local group. “The green rolling hills.”