Society Receives $100,000 Gift for Sylvan Heights Waterfowl

The North Carolina Zoological Society received a $100,000 gift from the Michael and Judy Steinhardt Foundation of New York City. The gift supports a Zoo Society capital campaign that is raising $1.5 million for Sylvan Heights Waterfowl, a waterfowl conservation facility in Scotland Neck. The capital campaign will help Sylvan Heights develop its potential as an eco-tourism destination.
         The Michael and Judy Steinhardt Foundation began after Michael Steinhardt closed a lucrative career on Wall Street. In 1995, he turned his time and fortune toward philanthropy, and in 2001, John Wiley & Sons published his memoirs, No Bull: My Life In and Out of the Markets. Michael and Judy Steinhardt have helped support Sylvan Heights for more than 15 years. For the past seven years, the Zoo Society has proved much of the operational funding for Sylvan Heights.
         Located in eastern North Carolina and run by Mike and Ali Lubbock, Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Center maintains the largest captive waterfowl population in North America. Mike Lubbock has achieved 17 world and 12 North American First-Breeding Awards and is a recipient of the Jean Delacour Avicultural Award and the Master Breeders Award for Aviculture from the American Pheasant and Waterfowl Society. Mike Lubbock and his wife Ali have been inducted into the International Wild Waterfowl Association’s Hall of Fame.
         The planned facility will feature aviaries organized on a continental theme, lakeside stations for viewing migrating birds, a state-of-the-art theater and exhibits of artwork celebrating birds. A centerpiece of the project will be the Center for Advanced Avian Studies, an education facility complete with a library, conference room, office and laboratory.