At the end of the 1800's, plume hunters slaughtered hundreds of thousands of egrets and herons for fashion, and in 1886 milliners paid $32 an once, twice the price of gold at the time, for egret plumes to adorn ladies hats. The hunts took place during breeding season, when the birds' showy feathers were at their finest, decimating the adult population and all but wiping out the next generation. In 1896, a Boston society matron heard of the birds' plight and began a campaign to boycott feather hats and to get legislation passed to protect wading birds. This became the initial action of the fledgling Audubon Society, the first nationwide, grass-roots conservation organization in the country. The effort to save the plume birds launched many further actions that helped preserve Corkscrew swamp, one of the few remaining functional parts of the greater South Florida Ecosystem. The Audubon Society continues fighting to save Corkscrew Swamp and the greater Everglades Ecosystem by speaking out in boardrooms and legislatures and educating visitors about native ecosystems, while work at Corkscrew restores and protects the water flows vital to the swamp's survival.