Stats for the State of Louisiana Certified Signature Sanctuaries: 1 Featured Signature Courses: Audubon Park Golf Course

Audubon Park Golf Course
Using an infill location that was already disturbed by a previous golf course project,  Audubon International and the Audubon Nature Institute worked cooperatively on 80 acres in the historic Garden District of New Orleans to restore habitat and to provide a cohesive educational program aimed at golfers, area residents, and park users.  The challenge was to improve wildlife habitat corridors throughout the property to connect isolated habitat patches and lakes and to increase the vegetative diversity in these patches and corridors.   The 18-hole golf course is circled by a paved pedestrian and bike path which is shaded with huge live oak trees with wide, sweeping canopies which, in some cases, extend to the ground.  The golf course is part of the Audubon Park complex, which also includes the Audubon Zoo, Audubon Nature Institute offices,  and other public park land.  The Zoo and Institute offices lie to the south of the golf course property and adjacent to the Mississippi River.   Eighty percent of the property remains as open space, with ten percent wooded. Along the northern and eastern periphery, there is a 13-acre lagoon which was excavated as part of the original plan for Audubon Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, founder of American landscape architecture in the early 1900s. Lagoon edges were not modified from the original design as the lagoon is one of the only remnants from Olmstead’s original plan. 

Located in the middle of the lagoon near golf hole #18 is Duck Island.  The small island is populated by large Chinese tallow trees that have, over the years, become habitat and nesting cover for many wading birds, including snowy egret, black-crowned night-heron, and great egrets. Hurst Walkway, a pedestrian walkway through the middle of the golf course from east to west,  is used regularly by walkers and provides ample opportunity for revegetation and restoration of native plant species near and along the walkway.  Historically speaking, Audubon Park was the site of the 1884 World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition.  The main building of the World’s Fair included almost 32 acres under its roof, covering what have become holes four through nine on the new golf course.  The bricks along the lake near golf hole #9 are remnants of the building foundation.  The golf course, designed by Denis Griffiths, opened in October 2002 and was certified as the first Audubon Silver Signature Sanctuary in the state of Louisiana on July 22, 2004.  See more of Audubon Park at www.auduboninstitute.org/park/index.php.