This should alleviate some of the City of Eureka's financial neck pain. The charming (or barbaric, depending on your view) but costly millstone of the Sequoia Park Zoo has been lightened by a whopping grant. The press release:

The City of Eureka and the Sequoia Park Zoo Foundation are proud to announce that we have been awarded a Nature Education Facility grant award of $2.3 million from the California Department of Parks and Recreation. The grant will be used to develop and build an exhibit entitled Watershed Heroes which will provide interactive educational opportunities for children and adults centered on the charismatic wildlife of our local watershed -- river otters, salmon, and bald eagles.

On second perusal, this might do nothing to fix the funding problems that have plagued the zoo over the last few years. But river otters! Bald eagles! Um, salmon. There will be a press conference at the zoo tomorrow morning at 10:00. If only Bill had lived to see this.