New Plumas Audubon director loves the outdoors
Lindsay Wood is the new executive director of the Plumas Audubon Society. She officially began her tenure Sept. 20 of this year.
Wood is a wildlife biologist by training, and before accepting her new position she worked for the Altacal Audubon Society in Chico to promote awareness, appreciation, and protection of native birds and their habitats.
“At the time I was studying Western and Clark’s grebes on the Thermalito Afterbay,” she said, “the same two species that are found nesting at Lake Almanor and Eagle Lake,” as well as other county locations, said Wood.
“It was part of a study being conducted by the Plumas, Altacal, and Redbud Audubon chapters, all working together with a focus on the monitoring of grebes,” adding that, “I’ve been an outdoorsy-type of gal my whole life.”
Her hobbies include rafting and boating, mountain bike riding and “studying wildlife.”
Her background with the Altacal Audubon Society since 2012 includes leading field trips for the Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway, which as an aside she noted is coming up again from Jan. 23 to the 27 of 2019, featuring the Eagle Roost Safari field trip, currently sold out, where guests sign up for a foothill adventure in a converted military vehicle to view eagles, falcons, Burrowing owls, and other wildlife on Eagle Creek Ranch, an 8,500-acre private ranch located just minutes from Chico.
Wood, originally from Oroville, decided to move out of Chico for her new appointment in August after living there for the past eight years, purchasing a property in Meadow Valley near Quincy.
As executive director for Plumas Audubon, she said her goals foremost align with work that is already underway by the organization that include preserving important bird habitat that focuses on areas with high biodiversity of avian species.
“Another goal that I have is to collaborate with regional partners to support resilient forests, including enhancing the forest environment, coordinating understory burning, and meadow restoration,” she said, “and especially to continue our research on the grebes that nest in Plumas County,” by working with Audubon California and the National Audubon Society to increase attention on their declining populations.
In addition, “I’m also focused on water policy, probably my biggest passion,” she continued.
“I’m excited to have moved up here because I wanted to live in the Upper Feather River Watershed to do conservation work and forest health projects,” Wood shared. “I can’t imagine a job more suitable for me or more satisfying.”
