What do wood ducks have to do with fuel-efficient vehicles?

Almost nothing, it would seem ... until yesterday. That's when CWA took its wood duck nestbox-building show on the road to Shell Martinez' Make the Future California event at Sonoma Raceway. The event features the EcoMarathon high school and college student competition to build the most fuel-efficient vehicles, whether they're fueled by gasoline, batteries or hydrogen cells.

Why build wood duck nestboxes at a car competition? The short answer is that there's a pond behind the raceway where these nest boxes will be installed.

But it goes deeper than that: Shell Martinez is supporting habitat work in the Napa-Sonoma Marsh. And at the event on Saturday, it presented California Waterfowl a check for $5,000 to support our mission to sustain and grow California’s waterfowl populations, wetlands and hunter-conservationist community.

L-R: Randall Brown, director of sponsorship sales at Sonoma Raceway and former California Waterfowl board member; Darren Solaro, CWA field operations representative; Thomas Rizzo, Shell Martinez General Manager; and Brian Huber, CWA waterfowl biologist.