OUR MISSION
The mission of Audubon of Southwest Florida is to protect plants, animals, and their habitats and to promote environmental education and a greater community involvement with the natural world.
Audubon of Southwest Florida, Inc., is an affiliated chapter (E33) of the National Audubon Society and Audubon Florida.
We provide educational programming, public outreach, community building, scholarship opportunities, and field trips, all of which promote a keener understanding of our relationship to the natural world, immediately from our own backyard, regionally along the Caloosahatchee River, or globally.
Audubon of Southwest Florida is in accord with the National Audubon Society’s Statement on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and has adopted the general goals and principles it sets out.
We warmly invite you to join us, whether for a birding adventure, local lecture, community breakfast, shorebird stewardship program, or a board meeting.
OUR HISTORY
The chapter was chartered by the Florida Audubon Society in 1958, and its original name was the Southwest Florida Audubon Society. Audubon’s legacy in Southwest Florida goes back more than a century, however.
Florida Audubon was established in 1900, and activists such as Julia Hanson of Fort Myers fought at the state level to end the plume trade devastating bird populations and to pass and enforce bird-protection laws.
Hanson served as secretary to Florida Audubon and chair of the bird-protection committee of the Florida Federation of Women’s Clubs. Her son, W. Stanley Hanson, was the state’s district inspector under migratory bird law. In January 1917, they were two of the co-founders of the Lee County Audubon Society.