Bayou Teche Black Bear & Birding Festival

Slated for April 16-18, 2010

The Bayou Teche Black Bear and Birding Festival will hold its annual celebration April 16-18, 2010 in downtown Franklin, Louisiana. The focus of the festival is educating the public about the Louisiana black bear and birding opportunities on the Cajun Coast, along with all the components of a traditional south Louisiana festival: great music and food, arts and crafts, and educational activities for both adults and children. Seminar topics will focus on bears, birds, and local habitats like coastal Louisiana and the Atchafalaya Basin.

Traditional events, like the Running of the Bears 5K Run/Walk sponsored by the Teche Action Clinic, a bike race sponsored by Franklin Foundation Hospital, the Bear-y-Patch Educational Area sponsored by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Cub Club children’s area, will be the backbone of the festival. Other attractions include a 20+ mile bike tour through Franklin and the Bayou Teche National Wildlife Refuge, a Black Bear Obstacle Course, a Teddy Bear repair clinic, and fireworks over beautiful Bayou Teche. This year’s Teen Zone will feature Games 2 U, a video gaming van with some of the hottest games on Nintendo Wii and X-box 360. Games 2 U will also have laser tag and giant hamster balls for teens to enjoy.

This year’s activities also include a reenactment of Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. The parade will consist of riders on horseback in full costume depicting the Trumpet Soldiers, Buffalo Soldiers, and Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders.

Live entertainment includes Time Peace, Crossroads, Lil’ Nat and the Zydeco Big Timers, Louisiana Kids, Hunter Hayes, Chubby Carrier and Bayou Swamp Band, Sweet Spot, Tommy G. and Stormy Weather, Geno Delafose and French Rockin’ Boogie, and Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Cha.

The third week of April is the peak of the migration of neotropical songbirds, birds that fly south for the winter and return each spring to breed and nest in North America. After the lengthy flight across the Gulf of Mexico to its northern shores, the trees along the coastal parishes offer the first resting places for birds before they continue their flight northward. It is a time when birds that are not considered residents of Louisiana can be seen along their migratory path.

For more information, contact Cajun Coast Visitors and Convention Bureau at (985)395-4905, (800)256-2931 or visit www.bayoutechebearfest.org.
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