Hog Island Audubon Camp has a rich history in American Ornithology with its first bird instructor, Roger Tory Peterson, to the birthplace of Audubon's Project Puffin.  Hog Island is operated by the National Audubon Society under the Seabird Institute. 

Since 1936, residential sessions at Hog Island have been led by some of the most respected naturalists and environmental educators in the nation, inspiring scores of scientists, school and university educators, and conservation leaders.

Once home to the Abenaki people who fished its clam-rich waters, this mid-coast Maine island purchased in the late 1600s by European settlers was named, like many islands off the coast of New England, for the livestock that roamed its New World pastures. It remains "Hog Island" to this day.

The island’s evolution beyond agriculture and timbering began in 1908 with a visit by Dr. David Todd and his wife, Mabel Loomis Todd. Concerned by haphazard logging and overgrazing in the region, Mrs. Todd negotiated with landowners to purchase and conserve much of Hog Island. The Todds built a bungalow within the island’s forest, and Mabel’s daughter Millicent spent many summers exploring its spruce-fir forests and abundant tidal pools.

Millicent Todd Bingham inherited the island upon the death of her mother in 1932. Determined to conserve it, she partnered with the National Audubon Society in 1935. John Hopkinson Baker, then Audubon’s executive director, had been searching for a site of ornithological significance where Audubon could protect birds and launch the organization’s first educational camp. Hog Island was an ideal match for his plan.