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American Bald Eagle Foundation July 2017
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Wild Alaska Live
Education & outreach coordinator appears as bald eagle expert on BBC One live T.V. show in Juneau, Alaska
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This past week, our education and outreach coordinator Sidney Campbell was proud to participate in the BBC One's three-night live TV event, Wild Alaska Live. She flew down to Juneau and joined the massive crew on set at the Mendenhall Glacier. When she arrived she was guided through the process by a team of patient professionals who, “were clearly having the time of their lives experiencing the beauty and wildlife of the Tongass National Forest,” Campbell said. The crew was extra excited when rehearsals were occasionally interrupted by the opportunity to get footage of local bears eating grasses nearby. Her job on the show was to share her enthusiasm and knowledge about bald eagles.
Matt Baker, the host of Wild Alaska Live,is the host of a popular British talk show. Campbell participated in a two-minute segment of the show, and then was live on Facebook for questions from the viewers afterward. A couple of days after the event, BBC Wild Alaska Live released a special video on Facebook where she talks about bald eagle adaptations.
She also had the opportunity to meet the hosts of the PBS partner project, Chris and Martin Kratt. The Kratts are the creators and hosts of several children’s shows over the last two decades that focus on the value of wildlife. According to Campbell, her career choice was directly inspired by her childhood watching their programs, which made meeting them an amazing experience. Campbell said her segment was over in a flash, but she will never forget participating in such an exciting and impacting production.
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ABEF Receives Three Grants for the Museum
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Our museum coordinator and our Executive director have been working hard to make improvements to our natural history museum. Within the last couple of months museum coordinator Katie Dickerson has helped the museum receive two grants to help improve our museum. The first one is for a Granger personnel lift. This grant was received by Grants-in-Aid from Alaska State Museums and has allowed for our museum coordinator to purchase a $6,300 lift. Dickerson will use the lift to clean museum specimens, do general maintenance and move specimens and change exhibits. From the Rasmuson Foundation Collections Management Fund we received $1,200 to purchase UV film for our windows to the museum. The UV film will help protect the longevity of our specimens by preventing them from fading and drying out.
Executive Director Cheryl McRoberts applied for the third grant we received. This grant was from Rasmuson Foundation’s Art Acquisition Fund. This $8,000 grant allowed us to purchase “Eagle Gathering” by Haines artist Tresham Gregg. The piece was just recently hung outside of our museum to welcome guests.
As far as future grant prospects, Dickerson plans on writing grants that will help us acquire a Tlingit Chilkat Blanket as well as fund track lighting for the rotating exhibits rooms.
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Meet the new faces at ABEF
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ABEF is excited to welcome our five new summer interns. The internship program invites dedicated young people from across the country to join us for 12-26 weeks and learn what it takes to keep a non-profit museum and raptor center operating. Over the next few months, we will be featuring one or two of these carefully selected individuals in each newsletter.
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Erin Mihlbachler comes to the ABEF internship program from Monument, Colorado. She graduated from Colorado State University with a bachelor’s in communications studies and global and environmental sustainability. Before interning with us, Erin worked for the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge as an environmental education intern where she worked with endangered black-footed ferrets. Erin decided to apply to the ABEF internship because she wanted more experience with animal husbandry and wanted to inspire people from across the world to become more involved with their local wildlife conservation efforts. Erin thinks Haines is beautiful and she enjoys having the coast and the mountains all in one community. Her favorite part about the ABEF internship is working with her feathered co-workers and gaining skills working with a variety of raptors. While at the ABEF, Erin has excelled in interacting with visitors, making connections and inspiring our guests to care about raptors. Erin is not sure what’s next for her after she leaves the ABEF this August, but she hopes to pursue a career where she is surrounded by wildlife and visitors from across the world to inspire them to help wildlife in their own regions of the globe. Thanks for all of your hard environmental education and husbandry work this summer, Erin. It’s been so great to have you on the 2017 team.
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ABEF "Window Strike" Event
Open House Event Highlights Bird Collisions with Windows
According to a study published by the American Ornithologists Union, birds colliding with windows accounts for up to one billion bird deaths per year in the U.S. alone. To bring awareness to the community, ABEF staff decided to theme our annual summer open house “window strike”. Our interns put together a trivia dart game, and a create your own decal activity center. The Rusty Compass Coffeehouse generously donated baked goods, a veggie tray and coffee and tea for the event. Additionally, our Eurasian eagle owl and our peregrine falcon co-workers were out to meet guests and tell them about the importance of keeping our windows protected from birds. Birds fly into windows because they cannot differentiate between the window and the open sky. Sometimes birds are killed on impact, and other times they fly away and die later of impact injuries. Preventing birds from hitting your windows can be done in a variety of ways. To learn more about why birds fly into windows and how to prevent them, click here.
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When you become a member of the American Bald Eagle Foundation, you’re helping to fund educational programs such as our Youth Raptor Program, reduced price programs for low-income families or groups, as well as the resources we need to give our avian ambassadors the best possible care via husbandry, enrichment and training. Interested in joining?
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