Looking back at the season
Another year with highs and lows has passed, but things were definetely better than in 2020. Unfortunately due to COVID-19 and travel restrictions, we weren’t able to make any birding tours (again) from March until mid-June. International travel was still really tricky in May and most of June, but our Bear Watching Hides were opened. In these 2 months, we offered the possibility for every booking/close friends/family to have the whole hide for themselves. Just so it would be as safe as possible for everyone. Also, in these months we had discount prices. As in Estonia, things were a bit better than in most other European countries, local people visited the hides and we are very thankful to all of them.
The rest of the season was decent and we did not have to cancel any other tours. Our bear-watching season ended about a week before we had planned, but that’s just nature. The weather got colder and the bears reacted by becoming inactive. After there had been 3 consecutive days without bears appearing, we knew that it was time to end the season. Thatäs just how nature works. The people who that had the misfortune of visiting us in these 3 days were offered a free stay next season and understood the situation.
Alutaguse Bear Forest Fund update
As we have promised, we transfer 5€ per every regular Bear Watching Hide client and 10€ per every client coming to our regular tour (even if the tour itself does not take them to the hide) to the Alutaguse Bear Forest Fund. Now we can say that so far we have managed to gather 4125€ on the fund’s name through Bear Watching Hide visits and 400€ through 2 private donations.
Right now, it may not seem much, but we are sure if next seasons will be “normal” again, we will have enough to start investing in taking more forestland under protection.
We are very thankful to everyone who visited our hides or booked a tour with us. You all contributed to something important.
You can read more about the Alutaguse Bear Forest Project from here.
