Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area

The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area received the 2025 Excellence in Volunteerism Innovation Award for its Woolsey Fire Recovery Camera Project, a volunteer-driven initiative launched in response to the 2018 Woolsey Fire. The project, led by park scientists and educators, trained over 4,300 volunteers to deploy wildlife cameras and analyze over one million images, documenting the recovery of mammal populations across the park. The effort revealed both common and rare species, contributing valuable data for long-term ecological monitoring. Now in its sixth year, the project continues to engage the public through educational events and partnerships, highlighting the role of community science in post-fire wildlife research.

The National Park Service, in partnership with the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA), will begin trail repairs on the southern switchback section of the Hastain Trail in Franklin Canyon on Monday, September 29, 2025. The project will require weekday closures (Monday–Thursday) while crews are on-site, with weekend access remaining open. Repairs aim to address storm damage from February 2024 and will later extend to the Discovery Trail. The work is expected to take approximately three months, weather permitting.

Biologists “rescued” the threatened species, after extreme weather and wildfire disrupted native breeding grounds, as part of an emergency effort after the LA wildfires

On June 5, 2025, the National Park Service announces the addition of seven new sites to the Reconstruction Era National Historic Network.

The birthplace of abolitionist John Brown in Connecticut, the rescue of 14 freedom seekers in California and a monument commemorating 326 people of African descent who sought freedom through the St. Louis, Missouri circuit courts all appear in the latest additions to the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program. The Network has added 31 new entries to its list of sites, interpretive and educational programs and research facilities related to its twice-yearly appraisal of applicants.