The Audubon Louisiana Nature Center sits on 86 acres of hardwood bottomland forest in New Orleans East, opened in 1980 as a community project of the Junior League of Greater New Orleans. Katrina submerged the entire site under six feet of water in 2005 and held it there for over a month. While the forest survived, the structures didn’t, and the site stayed closed for 12 years while the ecosystem recovered and a $10 million rebuild took shape. The center reopened on October 6, 2017.
Three trails cover the property, ranging from 0.3 to 1.5 miles. The one-mile raised boardwalk is fully accessible, winding through bottomland forest over a brushy canal that runs the entire western border of the property. The Adventure Trail is the 1.5-mile dirt path, primitive and seasonally muddy with mud scrapers at the trailhead, and it carries a genuine sense of moving through something still in the process of recovering.
The habitat sits at the transition between hardwood bottomland and cypress swamp, with red maple and black willow stands, dense shrub edges, and vine tangles of Virginia creeper and wild grape that attract more than 170 documented bird species.
Spring brings migrant warblers, tanagers, and orioles moving through the mulberry and dogwood canopy, while the brushy canal edges hold Gulf Coast box turtles, brown water snakes, and five-lined skinks working the leaf litter year-round.
Inside the 8,500-square-foot Exhibit Pavilion, the interpretive center features a three-dimensional cypress forest display with mounted native fauna and rotating educational exhibits.
A planetarium runs scheduled shows at additional cost, and guided Ranger Rambles go out on the fourth Saturday of each month for all ages. Admission to the trails and interpretive center is free. The center is open Wednesday through Sunday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with free on-site parking. Take I-10 East to Read Boulevard, turn right, then left on Lake Forest Boulevard to the Waterford Street entrance.
