Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, November 25, 1997

"M'sieu Ned" McIlhenny was early conservationist

His Bird City at Avery Island helped save egrets

There had been a few attempts to pass legislation that would outlaw the plumage hunters, but to little avail. That's when E. A. (Ned) McIlhenny decided to do something about it.

McIlhenny knew something about what he was doing. Born in 1892, Ned had exhibited an interest in nature as soon as he was old enough to be aware of his surroundings, and his greatest interest had always been birds. In later life, McIlhenny took great pride in the variety and number of birds attracted to Avery Island. All sorts of exotic birds and animals found a home there.

During the course of his incredibly varied life, he served as naturalist (at age 21) to the Peary Relief Expedition sent to the North Pole. He headed his own Arctic expedition a few years later, went on big game hunts across the world, was a noted waterfowl expert, held key posts in a number of scientific organizations, and was a devoted and skilled gardener.

Now, as he pondered the fate of the egret, McIlhenny remembered the story told him by a British viceroy who had visited Avery Island. It was about an ancient rajah who, for the delight of his queen, had built huge bamboo cages wherein exotic birds built nests, mated, and reared their young. After the rajah's death, the bamboo cages were neglected and eventually rotted away. But even though there were no longer any bars to keep them there, the birds remained.

Seizing upon that idea, in the spring of 1892, McIlhenny built a huge wire cage over part of a lake on Avery Island. Going into the swamps himself, he captured seven young snowy egrets and freed them in the cage. He fed them to maturity, watched them grow, select mates, build nests, hatch, and rear their young.

At the beginning of the next migratory season, he destroyed the cage and watched the egrets take wing for South America. The next spring, the birds returned to Avery Island with their young. They reared families, migrated and returned, and the flock kept growing.

Today, the flock is so large that nature has to be helped in caring for them. Truckloads of twigs are dumped alongside Bird City on Avery Island each year, so that the birds will have the materials they need to build nests.

Alongside Bird City are the Jungle Gardens that McIlhenny built. He imported plants from around the world to make the fanciful gardens, so that today Japanese and Chinese wisteria drape giant oaks, daisies from equatorial Africa and irises from Siberia grow alongside one another, with Chinese Timber Bamboo, lace-leaved fern bamboo, and Titan Timber cane from the Orient. The gardens also include hybrid grapefruits and finger bananas from China, lotus and papyrus from the Upper Nile, papayas from the Tropics, soup trees from India, camellias from France, China, and Japan, and hundreds of varieties of azaleas.

M'sieu Ned, as he was known, was also responsible for bringing nutria to Louisiana. He brought them in from Argentina in 1937 because he thought their fur was valuable. These first nutria escaped into the marsh when their pens on Avery Island were damaged by a hurricane, and they have spread prolifically since.

McIlhenny also did a great deal of writing. He was published widely on subjects related to natural history, hunting, folklore, and exploration. His books included "The Alligator's Life History" (1935), "How I Made Bird City" (1912), "Bamboo Growing for the South" (1945), "The Autobiography of an Egret" (1939), several specialized monographs on camellias, collections of African-American folk stories and spirituals, and dozens of articles for popular and scientific journals.

He was remembered in a 1996 article in Louisiana Conservationist magazine as the "most knowledgeable and literate naturalist along the Louisiana Gulf Coast."

This article is copyrighted © by the Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser and is used with permission.  This web site was originated through a grant awarded to Carencro High School (Joel Hilbun/Bobbi Marino, Grant Administrators) by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund - 8(g).