Audubon Naturalist Society
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| Abbreviation | ANS |
|---|---|
| Motto | Connecting People with Nature in the DC Region |
| Predecessor | Audubon Society of the District of Columbia |
| Formation | 1897 |
| Type | Non-profit organization |
| Purpose | Conservation, environmental education |
| Headquarters | Woodend Sanctuary |
| Location | |
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Region
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Mid-Atlantic states |
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Executive Director
|
Lisa Alexander |
| Website | anshome.org |
The Audubon Naturalist Society of the Central Atlantic States (Audubon Naturalist Society) (ANS) is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation and education. Until 1959, the organization was known as the Audubon Society of the District of Columbia. The organization holds three properties in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area as wildlife sanctuaries, two in Virginia along with its headquarters in Maryland.
The first Audubon Society of the District of Columbia was organized in 1897 by Mrs. John Dewhurst Patten "for the protection and study of birds." It was one of many local groups organized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as part of the Audubon movement. Its first president was George M. Sternberg; the Executive Committee of fifteen members included Florence Augusta Merriam, Leland Ossian Howard, and Theodore Sherman Palmer.Robert Ridgway was named one of several honorary vice presidents, and designed a pin for the society.Olive Thorne Miller wrote one of the group's earliest leaflets. In the Society's first year, it printed and circulated a leaflet published by its counterpart organization in New York.
Early goals of the organization were to educate children about the value of birds and to curtail the use of bird feathers in millinery.Frank M. Chapman gave the inaugural lecture, "Woman as Bird Enemy," addressing the fashion for trimming hat with feathers. However, most of the active members of the early Society were women.
Theodore Roosevelt was an active member of the Society; during his presidency the organization occasionally met at the White House.
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