Audubon Nature Institute

The Audubon Nature Institute is a family of museums and parks dedicated to nature and based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

It consists of the Audubon Zoo, Aquarium of the Americas, Audubon Louisiana Nature Center, Audubon Park, Woldenberg Riverfront Park, Freeport-McMoRan Audubon Species Survival Center, Entergy IMAX Theatre, Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species (ACRES), Audubon Wilderness Park, and the Audubon Insectarium.

The Audubon family of nature sites and facilities began with Audubon Park – once home to Native Americans – and later, to New Orleans' first mayor, Étienne de Boré. He founded the nation's first commercial sugar plantation here, when New Orleans was still part of Spanish colonial Louisiana; and developed its first granulated sugar through a process invented by Norbert Rillieux, a local free man of color.

The land did not fall into public hands until 1850, when a philanthropist willed it to the city. During the US Civil War, the location alternately hosted a Confederate military camp and a Union hospital. In 1866, it was the activation site for the 9th Cavalry Regiment, the "Buffalo Soldiers," whose defense of the United States' western frontier made an indelible mark on America's African-American heritage.

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