Don’t ask Nurit Katz why she loves birds. “There’s just a joy that you find in things that isn’t necessarily explainable,” says Katz, UCLA’s inaugural chief sustainability officer.
Her efficiency is both admirable and necessary: In addition to her full-time job, Katz is also a current UCLA doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology, which will earn her triple Bruin status. Not only does Katz hold master’s degrees in business administration and public policy from UCLA, she also served as executive officer for UCLA Facilities Management and is an instructor at UCLA Extension.
Katz is eager to study and work with birds, including a pair of great horned owls nesting on campus for many years. Back in 2018, one of the pair’s owlets got stranded in a busy area of campus. After Katz assisted with the safe reunion of the owlet with its parents, she connected with the Los Angeles Raptor Study, directed by Daniel Cooper, who graduated from UCLA with a doctorate from the same program in which Katz is now a student.
The L.A. Raptor Study engages volunteers across the city to monitor the nests of hawks, owls, and falcons to help biologists gauge how these birds are adapting to the urban environment.
Becoming the study’s outreach coordinator, Katz found her involvement with and interest in birds deepening, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when participating in this community science program was a safe outdoor option. Today, she’s both a wildlife campus contact — reach out to her if you see a UCLA bird that may need assistance — and the faculty advisor for the Bruin Birding Club, UCLA’s Audubon on Campus chapter that leads free weekly campus bird walks.
More than 140 species have been spotted in the UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden alone. UCLA’s Hummingbird Canyon, between Franz Hall and the Geology Building, is a habitat revitalization project spearheaded by students in the Bruin Birding Club.
“There’s just something innate in all of us that connects to nature,” Katz says. “Everyone can think about birds and ecosystems through their own lens and in terms of what they do for us — the billions of dollars of economic activity from pollinators alone. But what’s most important is that love, that sense of connectedness to life they represent.”
And when it comes to the question of why everyone should care about birds, Katz poses a broader question of her own.
“Birds can sometimes be the most accessible, visible part of nature, but the question might be, ‘Why should you care about biodiversity? Why care about nature?’” she says. “And the answer to that is something the poet Gary Snyder said: ‘Nature’s not a place to visit. It is home.’”
