WRI = research, NABC = education - UPDATE February 2, 2010
February 2, 2010 - 7:38 PM CST
A big thank you to all the donors and to all who are suggesting ways to raise money for the North American Bear Center or asking for details about the $700,000 debt.
The debt is from constructing the nonprofit 501(c)(3) North American Bear Center, which opened May 7, 2007. We received no government money. We were incompetent fundraisers. The only thing we turned out to be good at was borrowing money. The debt from the 1.7 million dollar project was 1.2 million.
We are making a difference for bears but could do so much more if we weren’t spending so much on interest and principal. To reduce the debt, the Bear Center staff works mostly as volunteers. I am a total volunteer. The highest paid employee makes $15,000 per year. For all the staff has accomplished with so little money, we call them the Miracle Team. Our focus is replacing misconceptions with scientific facts, and it’s hard to find a better way to do that than letting people learn directly from bears like Lily.
Donations go totally and directly to reducing the principal. We don’t take anything for administering the funds, for overhead, or anything else that dilutes donations.
A question on Facebook asked how the nonprofit Wildlife Research Institute (WRI) differs from the North American Bear Center (NABC). The Wildlife Research Institute primarily does research, and the North American Bear Center primarily does education.
Since 1971, the Wildlife Research Institute has been conducting bear research and publishing scientific articles as shown at www.bearstudy.org. It conducts research under a permit from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources but receives no state or federal funding. Funded primarily by proceeds from its Black Bear Field Courses, the WRI is conducting the most detailed, long-term black bear research ever done. Professor E. O. Wilson of Harvard ranked the study as one of the four major studies of large mammals in the world. WRI has published more senior-authored, peer-reviewed scientific articles than anyone in the world. We work gratis to create exhibits for the North American Bear Center, charging only for materials.
When the Wildlife Research Institute had an opportunity to put a web cam in Lily’s den for scientific purposes, it seemed only natural to make it available to the public through the North American Bear Center. To see more of about the research, Lily, and the clan of bears she belongs to, watch ‘Bearwalker of the Northwoods’ on Animal Planet’s Wild Kingdom on April 4.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, North American Bear Center