The
name Audubon is synonymous with bird conservation. After his business failed,
John James Audubon decided to try to focus on his lifetime hobby of painting birds
as a way to make a name for himself. He set off down the Mississippi with nothing
much more than his painting supplies, his gun and a young assistant, determined
to paint all of the birds of America. When he brought his partly finished work
to England in 1826 he found himself an overnight sensation. His famous book of
435 life-size prints, Birds of America, remains a standard in nature painting
even today. Audubon had a deep concern for conservation and in his later works
wrote about the endangered habitat of birds in America. When the Audubon Association
was incorporated in 1905 for protecting birds and their habitats, it was named
in honor of America's most famous bird lover.
