Donna's healed eye We have our phone, email, and Internet back after being without it for the better part of 3 days. That gave Lynn an opportunity to have fun with his family, including 4 grandchildren ages 1 to nearly 5.
Ted’s veterinary appointment is 9:30 AM Monday at the Bear Center. He will get a physical exam including a full blood panel, x-rays of both front legs, and skin scrapings from his bare hindquarters. Two veterinarians will be tending to him. We’ll turn off his Den Cam for the exam.
Donna bear gave us a look at her healed eye in good light, showing how the lower left eyelid had been cut. Somehow, the eyeball looks fine. The eyelid has an irregularity but looks functional. Donna, at 14 is calm around people at feeding stations but wary elsewhere. We know less about her than we do about many of the other study bears because she had a habit of removing her radio-collars and not going to feeding stations where we could replace them. It’s been over a decade since she regularly came to the WRI like she has been doing the last couple weeks. When she’s been radio-collared, she showed her territory to be several miles away.
After working wonders as Director of Operations for nearly two years, Judy Thon has accepted our challenge to power up our educational outreach program. She accepted a new position as Director of Education. We quickly realized it was going to take two people to replace her as Director of Operations/Bear Curator. Program Director Sharon Herrell accepted the Bear Curator responsibilities, and Scott Edgett, new to the Bear Center, took on the job of Senior Director of Operations. Scott comes with 20 years of management experience, specializing in customer satisfaction. He is a trusted, long-time friend of Lynn’s. Each Director of Operations has had a unique style of management. We look forward to seeing what Scott will do. His reaction so far? He is very impressed with the staff. He told Lynn the Bear Center has some terrific people making things run like they do. He was especially impressed with the care they give to the bears.
Today, a dear Lily Fan let us know via a notarized document that she has changed her living trust to include $100,000 for the North American Bear Center—the second person to make this commitment since we opened in 2007. Thank you so much for this step toward long-term sustainability.
Thank you all for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center