Bald eagles Jackie and Shadow raise $10 million to save habitat

The land bald eagles Jackie and Shadow rely on for survival will remain intact. On Friday, Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV), the non-profit behind the pair’s 24/7 live cam, announced that they reached a goal of raising $10 million to purchase land around Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains.

A $5.5 million donation from Anna and Greg Brockman pushed the fundraiser to its goal ahead of a July 31 deadline. Greg Brockman is the co-founder and President of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Before the Brockmans’ donation, more than 25,000 donations had raised almost half of the necessary funds.

“Greg and I are grateful to all those who championed saving the home of these majestic eagles, Jackie and Shadow,” Anna Brockman said in a statement. “Like many people around the world, we love watching them be amazing partners to one another and raise their young. They inspire perseverance and a sense of connectedness to something greater, to nature. We are proud to be supportive. We are so appreciative of the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust and everyone who came together to preserve this incredible ecosystem, the life it will help sustain, and the forest that will be protected for generations to come.”

The land that will be purchased with the $10 million is known as Moon Camp. This stretch of land has been a target of luxury housing and marina developers for more than two decades. The land sits less than a mile from Jackie and Shadow’s nest, and borders part of the lake that is home to all of the fish that the eagles and their chicks rely on for sustenance. It also houses an undisturbed forest that supports birds, squirrels, and other animals, as well as the ash-gray indian paintbrush (Castilleja cinerea), a rare and threatened endemic plant only found here.

Purchasing Moon Camp was a passion project for Sandy Steers, FOBBV’s former executive director and fierce advocate for Jackie and Shadow. Steers died on February 11 after a battle with cancer. She was…