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Audubon honors for Robins Island owner

AUDUBON SOCIETY COURTESY PHOTO | Robins Island owner Louis Moore Bacon will receive the Audubon Medal in January at a NYC ceremony.

Louis Moore Bacon, owner of Robins Island, who just this month helped preserve the last undeveloped acreage along New Suffolk’s waterfront, will be awarded the Audubon Medal next January at a ceremony at The Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Mr. Bacon, the founder and CEO of Moore Capital Management, will receive the medal from the National Audubon Society for outstanding achievement in the field of conservation and environmental protection.

According to the Audubon Society, the medal is “one of the highest honors in conservation,” previously received by such luminaries as Walt Disney, Rachel Carson, Ted Turner, President Jimmy Carter and the Rockefeller family.

Raised in a family involved in real estate finance in North Carolina, Mr. Bacon worked on a fishing boat on the East End in his youth, where he met Walter Frank, who offered him a job trading currencies at Walter Frank & Co. He later worked as a floor runner on the New York Cotton Exchange and traded futures at Lehman Brothers before starting his own hedge fund.

He purchased the 434-acre Robins Island out of bankruptcy in 1988 and has worked to preserve shorebird habitat on the island.

In addition to his work on Robins Island and in New Suffolk, Mr. Bacon is being honored for helping to preserve Clifton Point in the Bahamas and Springer’s Point on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. He’s also protected Cow Neck Farm in Southampton and nearby Tern Island, a 50-acre preserve.

Mr. Bacon is also a supporter of the Everglades Foundation and is “the most significant funder” of Waterkeeper Alliance, according to a press release from the National Audubon Society.

“We are pleased to be able to award the Audubon Medal to Louis Bacon in recognition of his significant and diverse efforts to preserve and protect key natural ecosystems” said Holt Thrasher, chairman of the board of the National Audubon Society.

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