{"id":956983,"date":"2026-07-24T21:05:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/956983\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T21:05:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:05:17","slug":"big-bear-bald-eagles-habitat-saved-openai-president-donates-5-5-million-to-reach-goal-san-bernardino-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/956983\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Bear bald eagles habitat saved; OpenAI president donates $5.5 million to reach goal \u2013 San Bernardino Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was looking like the <a href=\"https:\/\/sbmlt.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust<\/a>, a nonprofit conservancy dedicated to permanently protecting forest land in the San Bernardino National Forest, would not reach its goal of raising enough money to buy land along the north shore of Big Bear Lake in Fawnskin to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2026\/03\/13\/fundraiser-aims-to-buy-forest-land-protect-habitat-of-big-bears-famed-eagles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">prevent a home development project known as Moon Camp<\/a>.\u00a0Then stepped in a tech billionaire.<\/p>\n<p>The conservancy group and property owners, RCK Properties from Chicago, had agreed on a $10 million deal for the land purchase. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2025\/09\/09\/path-cleared-for-50-houses-near-bald-eagles-habitat-in-big-bear-area\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">proposed development of 50 homes<\/a> is roughly a mile from the nesting site of Big Bear\u2019s beloved bald eagles, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.redlandsdailyfacts.com\/2026\/02\/24\/big-bear-bald-eagle-couple-welcomes-third-egg-weeks-after-heartbreak\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Jackie and Shadow<\/a>. These eagles are featured on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.redlandsdailyfacts.com\/2026\/02\/08\/how-big-bears-bald-eagles-became-social-media-stars\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">24\/7 livestream camera maintained by the nonprofit organization<\/a> Friends of Big Bear Valley. SBMLT launched fundraising efforts Feb. 19. Both parties agreed to a July 31 deadline.<\/p>\n<p>As of Thursday, July 23, the conservancy had raised almost half of the necessary funds \u2013 $4.9 million.<\/p>\n<p>With the days closing in, the chances of reaching the agreed amount seemed like a long shot.<\/p>\n<p>Then it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Friday morning, July 24, seven days before the agreement deadline, a $5.5 million windfall donation was announced, securing funding to avert the home development, according to a Friends of Big Bear Valley <a href=\"https:\/\/savemooncamp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Moon_Camp_funding_press_release_7_24_26.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"mng-gallery-initialized mng-gallery-slider\">\n<li data-index=\"1\" class=\"mng-ge mng-gallery-active\" id=\"mng-ge-0\" aria-hidden=\"false\" tabindex=\"0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A sign designates the area closed for two nesting bald...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SBS-L-MOONCAMP-0724-03-PB.jpg?w=620\"  bad-src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\"\/>\n<p>A sign designates the area closed for two nesting bald eagles at Big Bear Lake on March 10, 2026. The proposed Moon Camp housing and boating development is a short distance away in Fawnskin, CA. The forest land will now be under the care of the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust, a nonprofit conservancy, after it raised over $10 million to buy the land from the developer. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"2\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The proposed Moon Camp housing and boating development site is...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SBS-L-MOONCAMP-0724-02-PB.jpg?w=620\"  bad-src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\"\/>\n<p>The proposed Moon Camp housing and boating development site is seen across Big Bear Lake in Fawnskin, CA on Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Two eagles nest near the site. The forest land will now be under the care of the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust, a nonprofit conservancy, after it raised over $10 million to buy the land from the developer. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"3\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-2\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A map designates the area closed for two nesting bald...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SBS-L-MOONCAMP-0724-04-PB.jpg?w=620\"  bad-src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\"\/>\n<p>A map designates the area closed for two nesting bald eagles at Big Bear Lake on March 10, 2026. The proposed Moon Camp housing and boating development is a short distance away from the world-famous eagles Jackie and Shadow. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"4\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-3\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Big Bear Lake is seen from the north shore near...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SBS-L-MOONCAMP-0724-01-PB-1.jpg?w=620\"  bad-src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\"\/>\n<p>Big Bear Lake is seen from the north shore near the proposed Moon Camp housing and boating development in Fawnskin, CA on Tuesday, March 10, 2026. The forest land will now be under the care of the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust, a nonprofit conservancy, after it raised over $10 million to buy the land from the developer. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"5\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-4\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna,...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SBS-L-MOONCAMP-0724-05.jpg?w=620\"  bad-src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\"\/>\n<p>OpenAI co-founder  and president Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, donated $5.5 million towards San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust\u2019s fundraising efforts to permanently protect forest land in the San Bernardino National Forest. (Screengrab from friendsofbigbearvalley.org)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Show Caption<\/p>\n<p>1 of 5<\/p>\n<p>A sign designates the area closed for two nesting bald eagles at Big Bear Lake on March 10, 2026. The proposed Moon Camp housing and boating development is a short distance away in Fawnskin, CA. The forest land will now be under the care of the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust, a nonprofit conservancy, after it raised over $10 million to buy the land from the developer. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#\" class=\"icon-enlarge mng-gallery-fullscreen-expand\" aria-label=\"Expand fullscreen slideshow\">Expand<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/friendsofbigbearvalley.org\/anna-and-greg-brockman\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">benefactors<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/gdb?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Greg Brockman<\/a>, co-founder and president of San Francisco-based artificial intelligence giant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2026\/06\/08\/open-ai-ipo-paperwork\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">OpenAI<\/a> and his wife, Anna.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  size-article_inline lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SBS-L-MOONCAMP-0724.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"6025419\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cGreg and I are grateful to all those who championed saving the home of these majestic eagles, Jackie and Shadow. 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,\u201d Anna was quoted as saying in the news release.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny Voisard, media manager with Friends of Big Bear Valley, said by phone Friday morning that the group had been in conversation with the Brockmans for about a month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen they committed to doing this, we were just so ecstatic and so excited. My team didn\u2019t even know. We were sworn to secrecy to keep this confidential while we figured everything out and got everything sort of done and prepared,\u201d Voisard said.<\/p>\n<p>Voisard said she\u2019s happy to give the community some \u201cgood news,\u201d with the backdrop of the famous livestream bald eagle duo, Jackie and Shadow, separated now for days.<\/p>\n<p>Over the weekend, Jackie was found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2026\/07\/19\/fans-worry-jackie-is-big-bear-eagle-rescued-after-fight-found-on-ground\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">grounded for hours<\/a> after being seen in an altercation with two younger eagles. The mama bird is\u00a0 being treated at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ojairaptorcenter.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Ojai Raptor Center<\/a>, a rescue and rehabilitation center in Ojai, a community in Ventura County.<\/p>\n<p>The latest update from Ojai on Thursday, July 23, was that Jackie s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2026\/07\/23\/big-bear-bald-eagle-jackie-receives-life-saving-transfusion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">uccessfully underwent a life-saving transfusion<\/a> thanks to another bald eagle from California Living Museum in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n<p>Jackie isn\u2019t out of the woods just yet. Ojai\u2019s medical team <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theojairaptorcenter\/posts\/pfbid05zZN3nWUp1S21aGZNbixHP1PLgfDEb4QH9UcxTNG73QZiXzLkTpSrPpmck1zPStxl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">says her condition remains<\/a> \u201ccritical\u201d and remains anemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis week has been so rough,\u201d Voisard said. \u201cI\u2019m so grateful to Anna. She loves Jackie and Shadow. She\u2019s a big fan, and she\u2019s inspired by the community giving. And she wanted to help,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>With the funds now secured, the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust will close on escrow by July 31. If all goes smoothly, starting Aug. 1, the land will belong to and be cared for by SBMT in perpetuity.<\/p>\n<p>Leftover donated funds will go towards paying property tax, legal fees, closing costs and helping maintain the land, Voisard said.<\/p>\n<p>Voisard is filled with an array of emotions. She brings up the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2026\/06\/13\/friends-of-big-bear-valley-honors-its-late-leader-sandy-steers-in-celebration-of-life\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> passing of former FBBV Executive Director Sandy Steers<\/a>, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2026\/02\/12\/friends-of-big-bear-valley-executive-director-sandy-steers-dies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">died in February<\/a>. Steers had been instrumental in arranging the land purchase agreement with RCK Properties, said Peter Jorris, executive director of the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust, back in March.<\/p>\n<p>Steers did not live to see her goal fully realized. Jackie\u2019s medical condition didn\u2019t help either.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m relieved to let everybody know that we did it,\u201d Voisard said.\u00a0\u201cI feel like this is what Sandy wanted, and that makes me happy.\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The final piece of this puzzle is Jackie, Voisard said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJackie, I have your Moon Camp ready,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>As for OpenAI, it has made headlines this year over assorted legal actions and situations including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A federal court in May <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2026\/05\/18\/musk-openai-trial-verdict\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">dismissed claims<\/a> filed against OpenAI and its top executives by Elon Musk, who accused them of betraying a shared vision for it to remain a nonprofit dedicated to guiding artificial intelligence\u2019s development for the good of humanity.<\/li>\n<li>Earlier this month, The Orange County Register, New York Daily News, The New York Times and other media outlets filed court papers seeking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2026\/07\/09\/oc-register-other-media-outlets-seek-serious-sanctions-against-openai-as-deception-alleged-in-copyright-lawsuit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">\u201cserious sanctions\u201d<\/a> against OpenAI, saying the company destroyed evidence and intentionally hid its ability to locate allegedly stolen news stories in training data and responses to ChatGPT users. The motion was filed in Manhattan Federal Court as part of an ongoing copyright infringement suit. The Sun in San Bernardino, the Register, and other papers in the Southern California News Group are part of MediaNews Group. The New York Daily News is part of an affiliated company, Tribune Publishing.<\/li>\n<li>This week, OpenAI said it was investigating the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/2026\/07\/22\/openai-ai-models-hack-hugging-face-cyber-incident\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">\u201cunprecedented cyber incident\u201d<\/a> that led its artificial intelligence systems to break out of a testing environment and hack into another AI company.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was looking like the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust, a nonprofit conservancy dedicated to permanently protecting forest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":956984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[738,34556,276,746,28579,50,17748,214648,159,52,67,132,68,837],"class_list":["post-956983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-big-bear","tag-california","tag-environment","tag-inland-empire","tag-news","tag-san-bernardino-county","tag-san-bernardino-mountains","tag-science","tag-top-stories","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116976992849775678","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}