Saturday, December 19, 2009

moving forward

I am pleased to announce that some of our grant money has been reissued and the project is beginning to find an avenue to move towards success again.
I had a fantastic meeting with Northwest Tri-County Intermediate Unit #5 staff yesterday. We will begin planning on how to recruit science educators to help write the accompanying curricula to go with the coyote documentary. We meet again in April.
Telemetry continues to be done several times per week, and I simply cannot wait to catch up with what Carrie has been finding lately. She has some preliminary results of the dietary study, and has some additional lab work to complete which I hope to participate in.
There has been an observation of coyotes driving a deer into the lake (to no avail, I might add), and then tending to a packmate with a broken leg. Special thanks to the Park Rangers, who continue to report these things to us.
We have submitted for additional grant funding for Environmental Education, and have a very long list of granting agencies to inquire with. Due to grant timelines, specifically the time lapse that takes place between the actual proposal submittal and when funding is released, we will become quite aggressive in tracking down potential funding sources. The project simply cannot be put on hold indefinitely as the field research will go on regardless of the film production. It simply must: as battery life on the radio collars is a few years at best.
We also will be continuing to partner with one of our funding organizations, who will have an exciting addition in helping our efforts. Check back here in January for this exciting announcement.