Dear GBOP sponsors and supporters,

Here’s a short update on a few recent activities by the Grizzly Bear Outreach Project (GBOP):

GBOP’s Blog
We’re excited to announce that GBOP has entered the Blogosphere! GBOP’s Okanogan Field Coordinator Dennis Ryan has created this wonderful new communication tool for us to provide interesting, entertaining news items about bears in a timely way. There are already several BLOG entries on the site for you to enjoy: http://bearinfo.blogspot.com/

This doesn’t replace the GBOP website of course which stays at: www.bearinfo.org

As sponsors, if you have bear news that you’d like us to share with the world through the BLOG, please email: dennisryan@bearinfo.org

GBOP’s growing team of Field Coordinators
Other great news - we’ve taken on Rick Hartley as the Leavenworth GBOP Field Coordinator. He’ll be responsible for the Highway 2 region from Sultan to Wenatchee. Welcome aboard Rick! We’ll be hiring a Field Coordinator for North Bend (Issaquah to Cle Elum) within the next month or two. Nan Laney and Dennis Ryan continue to cover a lot of ground in Skagit, Snohomish, and Okanogan Counties. Their work is always imaginative and productive! For example, tomorrow Nan will be handing out GBOP certificates to those school children at Concrete Elementary School who entered our bear poster contest. We’ll be printing 50 copies of the winning entries to post around the Cascades to help promote Bear Smart. Nan’s area has also recently expanded to encompass Darrington and Granite Falls. Dennis has been busy with many slide presentations, and also preparing the way to make Mazama our second Bear Smart Community (we conducted our Bear Smart assessment there in October).

GBOP has also expanded to the Cascades of British Columbia thanks to Jim Davis! Word of our work has also reached northwest Montana where we hope to implement an outreach program in the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear recovery zone to complement the great work already being accomplished there.

Bear Smart Glacier
Bear Smart Glacier continues to gain momentum - we’ve been working closely with community members from this North Cascades town to help prevent and manage nuisance bear problems that arise from bears accessing non-natural food items such as bird seed, compost, fruit trees, and garbage. For more information about GBOP’s Bear Smart program, please see: http://www.bearinfo.org/bearsmart.htm

REI sponsors GBOP
REI has become the latest organization to join the growing list of GBOP sponsors. Many, many thanks in particular to REI Bellingham staff for voicing their support for our work. We really appreciate the help provided by our REI friends Charlie Heggem, Duy Tran, and Wendy Miller. Many thanks also to our other sponsors for their continuing support!

For more news please see the GBOP website (www.bearinfo.org), or the GBOP Blog (http://bearinfo.blogspot.com/)

Best regards,

Chris Morgan
Jim Davis
Nan Laney
Dennis Ryan
Rick Hartley

____________________________________________

Chris Morgan (M.S. Ecology)
Co-Director/Bear Specialist
Grizzly Bear Outreach Project (GBOP)
PO Box 28656, Bellingham
Washington State 98228-0656, USA
Tel: (+1) 360 734 6060
Fax: (+1) 360 734 0800
email: chrismorgan@insightwildlife.com

web site: http://www.bearinfo.org

Chris Morgan’s Blog: http://chrispmorgan.blogspot.com/

Promoting an accurate understanding of grizzly bears and
their recovery in the North Cascades Ecosystem through
community education and involvement