Trinity River Audubon Center, located just ten miles south of downtown Dallas, is your gateway to explore the amazing resources of the 6,000-acre Great Trinity Forest. As the largest urban hardwood forest in the United States, this forest supports a diverse community of plant and animal species and contains a unique mixture of bottomland hardwoods, wetlands and grasslands. A part of the City of Dallas-Trinity River Corridor Project, the center's 120 acres sit on a former illegal dump site, now a reclaimed haven for a vast array of birds and other wildlife in an increasingly urbanized metropolitan area. Five miles of trails lead visitors through hardwood forests, pond, wetland, and prairie ecosystems, and along the Trinity River.  

From its inception in 2008, as one of the National Audubon Society’s flagship environmental education center in the Central Flyway, Trinity River Audubon Center has been welcoming visitors to its sanctuaries and inviting them to participate in nature education programs. This innovative approach—preserving open space not just to protect wildlife and native habitat from people but to actively engage people in its conservation through learning and exploration—served as a model for Audubon and other nature education centers nationwide and has influenced the development of place-based experiential learning as a highly effective pedagogical practice. The center supports Audubon's mission: To protect birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow.

The center itself, designed by 2006 AIA Gold Medalist architect Antoine Predock, is the first LEED-certified building constructed by the City of Dallas Park and Recreation Department. Its green features include a vegetated roof, rainwater collection system, energy efficient systems, and recycled materials.

Visitors have the opportunity to explore hands-on exhibits, miles of nature viewing trails, our butterfly garden, and a great nature store with unique gifts and nature related items. Academic programs at the center are designed to address the need for students to improve and strengthen their science and critical thinking skills while introducing them to the wonders of nature.

The Trinity River Audubon Center offers everyone the opportunity to connect to nature and experience the outdoors year around. Come discover for yourself – you will not be disappointed.

Trinity River Audubon Center is a nonprofit organization supported, in part, by funds from the City of Dallas Park and Recreation Department.