Associated Press
A schoolteacher has left $1.8 million from her estate for the protection of Minnesota’s state bird.
Iva Weir left the money to the Nature Conservancy in Minnesota for preservation of the loon’s imperiled habitat.
Weir was born in Moorhead and grew up in Bemidji before moving to Oregon in her 20s. She died in 2006 in Corvallis, Ore., at age 85.
The gift will be announced today and is one of the largest ever given to the conservancy in Minnesota for the preservation of a single species.
