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Celebrating 100 years!

On March 2, 1922, in Portland, the temperature reached a high of 23 degrees, with an overnight low of 16. About 3.7 inches of “snow, ice pellets, hail” fell that day, and at the observed time, there were 24 inches of snow, ice pellets, hail, or ice already on the ground. Wintry weather did not stop the wheels of progress: on that blustery day, Maine Audubon became officially incorporated.

Maine Audubon’s incorporation was a reflection of the growing conservation movement in the United States, with birds as a particular focus. Alarm over the widespread slaughter of American wildlife—the near-extinction of American Bison and Passenger Pigeon; the destruction of heron rookeries for decorative feathers—was spurring the nation into action.

Wildlife conservation was an undeveloped concept, without laws to back it up or dedicated groups to push for change. But people were set on progress, and the period between 1900 and 1925 constructed an infrastructure for conservation that supports the movement to this day. 

The first step was organizing those in support of action. The National Audubon Society, started by George Bird Grinnell in 1895, worked in part to support the passage of the “Model Law” in Maine in 1901, which protected all of the state’s nongame birds, nests, and eggs. The success of that group inspired Dr. A. L. Lane and the Rev. G. W. Hinckley, both of Fairfield, to create the statewide “Maine Audubon Society” in 1902. Just two years later it was reported that Maine Audubon had 10 local secretaries, 265 regular members, and 758 associate members scattered across the state. Twenty years later the Cumberland County Audubon Society was founded, and held meetings in Portland in conjunction with the Portland Society for Natural History (a group founded in 1843 to promote knowledge in the various branches of natural history); the organizations would eventually merge and formally become one in 1972.  

The national fervor for action resulted in a number of foundational conservation successes in those early decades. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was passed in 1913, providing Federal protection to all migratory and insectivorous birds, and was improved again in 1918. Congress passed the Federal Water Power Act in 1920, establishing federal oversight for water power projects that were dramatically reshaping landscapes across the country. Congress worked throughout the decade to establish new national parks, including what became Denali National Park in Alaska in 1917, Zion National Monument in 1918, and, in 1919, the first national park east of the Mississippi: Lafayette National Park, later to be known as Acadia.

Those early decades set up the past century of work. Our work to protect Maine wildlife and habitat and instill in Mainers a love of the natural world has not paused since the days of our founding, and will continue on. We’ve made significant progress on many of the conservation issues that drove our earliest supporters, including the regulation of hunting in Maine and the protection of land across Maine for its biodiversity and outdoor recreation. We’ve also had a hand in major national successes like the passage of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts and the banning of DDT to protect eagles and osprey. Our desire to educate and protect is as strong as ever as we move into our next century!

Photo: In the early 1920s, the City of Portland built a wooden toboggan chute on the Western Promenade. The site, which included a wooden ski jump, provided the focal point for the Portland Winter Carnival, first held in 1922. During the 1924 carnival, as many as 5,000 spectators watched ski jumpers compete.
Credit: Toboggan Chute, Western Promenade, Portland, ca. 1922; Portland Press Herald glass negative collection; www.mainememory.net/artifact/41794