The Finger Lakes Museum last weekend hosted a Boy Scout Camporee at its Branchport Discovery campus.
The Finger Lakes Museum last weekend hosted a Boy Scout Camporee at its Branchport Discovery campus. Hundreds of scouts from the Finger Lakes region participated in lacrosse, pioneering activities and a history lesson on the Civil War by presenters dressed in period garb and exhibiting genuine artifacts.
The highlight Saturday was a visit from Liberty, a female bald eagle, and her handlers, Paul and Ann Schnell from the Institute of Environmental Learning in Hilton, Monroe County. Paul relayed the story of the successful recovery of the bald eagle population after it was reduced to a single nesting pair in all of New York state less than 50 years ago. The effects of DDT, a pesticide in common use at that time, had weakened their eggshells, which were then broken by the parents during incubation. As a result, the eagle population plummeted.
The redevelopment of the former elementary school into the Discovery Campus was one of ten transformational projects recommended by the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council to Gov. Andrew Cuomo for state funding last fall. A $2.3 million grant was awarded by the state in December. That it will all go toward the reconstruction project. The museum’s main campus is slated to break ground in nearby Keuka Lake State Park beginning in 2013.