Just as we have seen in wild dens, Ted frequently rearranges his bedding as a prolific pond-chatter captured in this 10-minute video. The effort to capture this and the great quality of the new cameras that y’all helped buy deserves a big thank you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyNnqIsJyW4
Black Bear Box in classroom
Thinking of the future, we want to reach out to as many schools and students as we can. As we sent out a Black Bear Box today, we thought of how much more we would like to do in the future. Our goal is to educate—especially schools. The postage and work to send out these boxes is not fully covered by what we charge the schools. We want to educate to the extent we can possibly afford. Our goal is to eventually have a twenty million dollar endowment fund and live off 5% of it per year. That would be a million dollars a year we could spend to create these educational boxes and send them to schools across the country.
Black Bear Box in classroom Most schools cannot afford the shipping. If the full endowment fund comes to fruition, we could create and ship thousands of boxes per year. We could also hire a couple educators to visit schools, communicate with classes via skype, and lead free nature hikes on the Bear Center nature trails throughout the year. We envision subsidizing school bus transportation to make that possible. We also depend upon student interns ($1,500 per intern plus summer and fall lodging in the dormitory of Vermilion Community College). We also depend upon Volunteer Bear Educators in many ways. Our interns and educators have been a great help in making visitor experiences so good that we are the Number One destination in the Ely area according to Trip Advisor.
With enough contributions to the endowment fund, all of the above is possible.
It’s not about making money, it’s about spreading the word.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center