It Began With Birds

As the last century waned, gunners killed millions of birds each year for the marketplace. Sportsmen were unrestricted; collectors and amateur scientists indiscriminately took eggs from nests; market hunters plundered whole colonies of birds. Especially affected were large waders such as egrets, killed for their elegant plumes which were used to decorate women’s hats, handbags and other fashionable clothing.

At that time, no law existed to slow the exploitation of birds or other wildlife. Entire species, such as the Passenger pigeon, Carolina parakeet and Great auk, were wiped out. Other species such as the Eskimo curlew were brought to the brink of extinction.

George Bird Grinnell, a big game hunter and editor of the sportsmen's magazine Forest and Stream, was one of the first Americans to publicly denounce this mindless slaughter. In 1886 Grinnell encouraged his readers to join him in forming the country's first bird preservation organization, the Audubon Society. The fledgling Society was named after the peripatetic American naturalist and wildlife painter, John James Audubon (1785 – 1851), best known for his dramatic, life-size paintings of North American birds and Grinnell’s boyhood idol.

In just three months, more than 38,000 people joined Grinnell’s Society, and he soon began publishing a magazine with J.J. Audubon’s portrait on the cover. However, shortly after the Society was formed, Grinnel, overwhelmed by the response and unable to stretch Forest and Stream’s resources to underwrite the group, reluctantly disbanded it.

A few years later, a socialite from Boston took up where Grinnell left off. Mrs. Augustus (Harriett) Hemenway was appalled after reading about entire flocks of birds killed in a single hunt and rallied her fashionable friends to protest. In response, they refused to buy or wear hats and clothing decorated with bird plumes or parts. In 1896 they formed the Massachusetts Audubon Society and immediately began writing letters to newspaper editors and speaking to all who would listen, including politicians, about the need to protect birds from uncontrolled slaughter. A few months later, the Pennsylvania Audubon Society was established and by 1899, 15 other states had formed their own organizations.

Although separate and autonomous, the groups shared the same concern for American birds and an identical goal: “To discourage the buying and wearing for ornamental purposes of the feathers of any wild birds except ducks and game birds and to otherwise further the protection of native birds.”

In 1899, Frank Chapman,  an ornithologist with the American Museum of Natural History, began publishing Bird-Lore magazine, which became a unifying national forum for the first Auduboners. Bird-Lore helped the state societies win support and members and became the official publication for many groups. Chapman sponsored the first national Christmas Bird Count in 1900 and published the results in his magazine.

The Christmas Bird Count itself has evolved into the largest and longest-running wildlife survey ever undertaken. Today more than 60,000 people from all 50 states, every Canadian province, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the Pacific Islands (all areas where the breeding birds of North America spend the winter) participate in about 1,800 counts held during a two and one-half week period at year’s end. The data provides ornithologists with valuable information such as range extensions, population changes and habitat loss.

In 1901 some clubs formed a loose alliance, the National Committee of Audubon Societies. Four years later, they incorporated into the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals. The association, headquartered in New York City, was a coalition of 35 state societies and the District of Columbia and elected as president William Dutcher, chairman of the American Ornithologists’ Union’s Bird Protection Committee.

Spreading the Word

According to Dutcher, the association’s goal was to “be a barrier between wild birds and animals and a very large unthinking class and a smaller but more harmful class of selfish people.” Education was the first priority. The association expanded the local public education efforts and letter-writing campaigns initiated by Hemenway and her confreres, amplifying members’ voices to the national level. In 1910 it launched the Junior Audubon Club in classrooms around the country, the first nationwide educational effort of its kind. Junior Auduboners received membership pins and informative leaflets on various birds and how they should be protected, while their teachers received copies of Bird-Lore. In 25 years, more than four million children passed through the club’s ranks.

The Auduboners worked to have many of the country’s earliest and most important conservation laws passed. These included New York State’s Audubon Plumage Law (1910), which banned the sale of plumes of all native birds in the state, and the 1918 federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. As early as 1900, Audubon’s William Dutcher began hiring wardens to patrol important bird nesting and roosting habitats; the first was hired to protect Matinicus Rock in Maine. Unfortunately, three of these early wardens were killed in the line of duty by poachers.

Audubon encouraged the government to protect vital wildlife areas by including them in a National Wildlife Refuge system. The first refuge was established in 1903 on Pelican Island, Florida, at the urging of Audubon. The association took some important bird habitats under its wing, thus beginning its own extensive nationwide sanctuary system. The largest Audubon refuge, the 26,000-acre Paul J. Rainey Sanctuary in Louisiana, was acquired in 1924.

In the early thirties, wildlife artist Roger Tory Peterson, a former Junior Audubon Club member, began publishing bird identification field guides. These precise, easy-to-use texts greatly increased the popularity of bird watching. Many newfound bird enthusiasts joined local Audubon clubs that were loosely affiliated with the national organization.

To strengthen the ties between national and affiliate members, community-based chapters were formed, beginning in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1944. The chapter network gave members an opportunity to share their interests and work on projects with other Auduboners living nearby, while contributing to the ongoing work of the national organization. Chapter members met once a month to discuss issues and local projects, enjoy bird walks and field trips, and sponsor education programs. Regional offices were subsequently established to act as liaisons between members and the national staff and to coordinate chapter activities.

To keep its members united and informed on various wildlife issues, the association bought Bird-Lore in 1935 from the American Museum of National History and changed its name to Audubon Magazine in 1940. Roger Tory Peterson, an Audubon staff member, contributed cover illustrations. At the same time, the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals changed its name to the National Audubon Society. The following year, Audubon began another ornithological publication, the more technical journal Audubon Field Notes, now called American Birds.

Audubon continued to produce innovative environmental educational materials that became popular with teachers and other science professionals and that turned thousands of youngsters onto the wonders of nature. In 1936, Audubon opened its first summer conservation education camp for adults, primarily Junior Audubon Club teachers, on Hog Island, Maine. The Society also established education centers where visitors were invited to see, hear, touch and smell the natural world around them. The first Audubon center opened in 1943 in Greenwich, Connecticut. These facilities became the model for thousands of non-Audubon centers in existence nationwide today.

In the 1930s, the Society began sponsoring scientific research projects, turning some of its sanctuaries into natural laboratories for research on endangered birds, such as the Ivory-billed woodpecker and the Roseate spoonbill.

Meeting Modern Challenges

In the 1950s, the population explosion and technological growth that occurred nationwide began to present new threats to wildlife—threats that were complex and more difficult to define or solve than the market hunting of the early days. To investigate these new challenges, National Audubon expanded its research programs particularly on endangered species, including the California condor, Bald eagle, Peregrine falcon and large wading birds such as flamingos, Wood storks and Whooping cranes. In addition, Audubon established a field research division, now headquartered in Florida.

In the 1960s Society researchers began uncovering a complicated web of environmental threats generated by modern technologies. Widely used pesticides such as DDT, predator poisons such as compound 1080, water and air pollution, rapidly expanding agriculture, resource exploitation, and urban and suburban growth threatened wildlife and destroyed habitat. Throughout the sixties and seventies, the Society was involved in developing major new environmental protection policies and laws. Audubon staff and members helped legislators draft and pass the Clean Air, Clean Water, Wild and Scenic Rivers, and Endangered Species acts.

In 1969 the Society opened a national capital office in Washington, D.C. and over the next decades, acquired a staff of full-time lawyers, lobbyists and activists. These environmental experts and concerned members testify before congressional committees and advise policy-makers on a wide range of environmental issues. To keep activists and chapter leaders informed and involved in helping to influence policy, the Society published a bimonthly newspaper, Audubon Activist. Currently, the Audubon Action Center issues Action Advisory e-mails on important timely issues and maintains a Web site for news on environmental issues. You may read more here

Audubon has expanded its work on international conservation issues, including global overpopulation, acid rain and species extinction. The Society contributes expertise and staff to international organizations such as the US Agency for International Development. In 1983 the Society co-sponsored the first international conference on the environmental effects of nuclear war.

Today the Society has more than 500 chapters, ten regional offices and 550,000 members. Its national sanctuary system protects more than 250,000 acres, and hundreds of additional acres are protected by individual chapters. The Society maintains 27 environmental summer education camps for adults and children, over 30 education centers and sanctuaries, and an accredited four-year university program, the Audubon Expedition Institute. Audubon’s field research on endangered and threatened species that began in the late 1930s continues today. The Science Office, opened in 1979, publishes reports on topics ranging from energy to water conservation.

In addition to Audubon magazine and American Birds, the Society historically published the annual Audubon Wildlife Report, a comprehensive overview of wildlife management agencies and programs. Currently Audubon publishes Science News, available online. In 1984 a new education program, Audubon Adventures, for children in grades three through six was begun. Currently there are more than 5,200 classrooms with 190,000 young naturalists enrolled in the Adventures program.

Audubon co-produces a series of one-hour television programs on cable and public television. The World of Audubon television specials offer viewers dramatic and at times, exclusive scenes of the natural world, often spotlighting rare and endangered species. Audubon also sponsors OWL/TV, a children’s science program on public television.

Today’s Audubon Society incorporates advanced technologies and ideas with traditional programs and long-held values. Through research, refuges, education and action, National Audubon Society continues its mission:  to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth's biological diversity.