Thank you to all our generous backers!

Today we reached our initial $7000 crowdfunding goal for our project:

"Do Pacific Northwest marine mammals carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria from land animals?" We simply could not have achieved this goal without the kind and generous donations, well-wishers, and social media smarts from all of our backers. Thank you very much and we will keep everyone updated on the progress of the study.

Given 10 days still remain in the crowdfunding campaign, we are going to continue to solicit support for 2 reasons:

1). Our team is so close to winning the Wildlife Disease Association Challenge -- which would give our research an extra $1000. This challenge is judged based on the highest number of backers by day 21 of the campaign (tomorrow evening 9/11 at 6pm PST).2). So will be soliciting as many small donations ($1-$5) to help us win this extra funding.

2). Any support above $7000 will go toward a "stretch" goal which will include increasing the sample size (number of animals we sample) and towards using genetic tools to better identify the characteristics of the resistant bacteria beyond just their species and amount of resistance.

So thank you again for your help and support of this project.

 

Sincerely, Stephanie and the team (and the marine mammals!)