Mrs. Lowry’s and Mrs. Lavender’s Environmental Science classes took a field trip to the Audubon Species Survival Center to learn about Endangered Species and help with eradicating some Invasive Chinese Tallow Trees on the property.
The Survival Center, operated by Audubon Nature Institute, is located on 1,200 acres of US Coast Guard and City of New Orleans land along the Mississippi River. The students learned about and fed different species on the property such as sable antelope, bongo antelope, whooping cranes, Mississippi sandhill cranes, giraffe, and okapi.
The eradication of Invasive Chinese Tallow Trees on the property is important because the trees make the soil around them poor in quality, spread quickly, and crowd out native plants. The trees are also toxic to animals in the area. The students were able to remove many of them from the Antelope and Giraffe pens. The Insectarium staff was able to gather the chopped Tallow Tree leaves to feed the leaf cutter ants.