Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 7, July 2004

Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.

Audubon Society more than birds' best friends

By JAMES BUSH

The Seattle Audubon Society isn't just for the birds.

"We like to say we're the original environmental organization in Seattle," says outreach coordinator Richard Huffman. The venerable organization, while traditionally associated with bird and bird-watching, spends much of its time working on environmental education programs and habitat protection efforts.

Currently the Wedgwood-based chapter is working with building supply companies such as Wallingford's Dunn Lumber store to offer consumers the choice of certified wood from sustainable yield forests.

Concerned about the cutting of South American forests for larger coffee crops, the Audubon Society recently introduced its own brand of shade-grown coffee.

"We realized if we ever wanted to make make headway, we needed to provide consumers with options," Huffman says.

The national organization (formed in 1905) traces its roots back to the late 1800s, when naturalists organized to halt the indiscriminate slaughter of birds for food and decorative plumage. The group took the name of legendary wildlife artist John James Audubon (1785-1851), whose 1826 book, Birds of America, featured prints made from his paintings of 435 types of U.S. birds.

The Seattle Audubon Society was formed in 1916.

"We're a chapter of the national organization, but we're independent both financially and program-wise," says Huffman.

Seattle is one of the country's largest Audubon chapters, with some 5,500 member households. The Seattle Audubon Society covers all of King County except the Eastside communities (they're served by the East Lake Washington Audubon Society), but Huffman stresses that the chapters "are not very territorial. We do stuff on their turf, they do stuff on our turf."

Among the society's education programs is the FUN (Finding Urban Nature) program for fourth-graders, a multi-week effort which takes small groups of students into the area around their school to work on projects related to the environment. The aim is to get them excited about science, Huffman says, and due to the hands-on nature of the program "a lot of those lessons tend to stick."

The society also offers programs for teenagers, which focus on joining together like-minded youngsters for bird-banding and monitoring projects, he adds.

Both nationally and locally, Audubon Societies are well-known advocates of habitat protection programs. The society was the lead plaintiff in the original federal lawsuit seeking to block destruction of the habitat for the spotted owl, and has long pushed for the creation of wildlife refuges, including Olympic National Park, North Cascades National Park, and Seattle's own Foster Island Bird Sanctuary.

Along with such big efforts, the society also thinks small. It works to teach homeowners how to make their yards and gardens more bird- and wildlife-friendly.

Huffman is one of about a dozen Seattle Audubon Society employees. A former director of Advocacy and Outreach for the Progressive Animal Welfare Society, he came to Audubon after that organization was forced to make recession-related staff cuts.

On the one hand, Huffman now holds the self-assigned title of "Audubon's worst birder," he jokes. On the other hand, he's learning.

Says Huffman: "It's definitely an organization where, if it's a great day, nobody's going to get mad if you want to go out and do some bird-watching."

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The Seattle Audubon Society offices and gift shop are located at 8050 35th Ave. NE. For more information, call 523-4483.