This spring, a group of students from the Napa Youth Stewardship Council made a trip to the Dunn-Wildlake Preserve for some hike leadership training as well as a peek into the process of our Wildlife Picture Index Project.

The Napa Youth Stewardship Council serves as a community service and career exploration organization for high schoolers in Napa County interested in the environment. They meet once or twice per month with local environmental professionals and volunteer their time after an application process in the fall.

With the help of staff from the Land Trust, Friends of the Napa River and the Napa Resource Conservation District, the students got training on how to engage with hikers when leading a hike, along with notes on outdoor safety. In May, the council put that training to work by guiding a community wellness hike for their final project.

They also hiked to one of the Land Trust’s remote camera locations to see firsthand how motion-sensitive cameras capture animals in the wild for our Wildlife Picture Index project. Periodic visits to check batteries and swap memory cards are only part of the multi-step process of scientifically documenting the animals on some of our protected land.

Thanks for coming Napa Youth Stewardship Council and best of luck in your future endeavors!

Photography by: Napa Resource Conservation District