The stately Great Egret (Ardea alba) is found worldwide in every continent except Australia and Antarctica. Found year-round along the Gulf coast, it can be separated from other white egrets by its yellow bill along with its black legs and feet. Beginning in the 1870s, a fashion craze demanding feathers to adorn women’s hats was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of birds per year, with the highest demand for the white plumes of breeding egrets. Efforts by early conservationists and women who boycotted the fashion trade saved this and other bird species. It is now the symbol of the National Audubon Society.
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