Jack completed his Youth Pathways Traineeship

Our first Youth Pathways Trainee has finished his year with us. During his fully funded traineeship, Jack Capell worked with us and our partners, gaining valuable experience across the conservation sector.

Jack smiling whilst proudly holding is Traineeship Certificate

We are incredibly proud of everything Jack has achieved! To celebrate his time with us, he shared his passion for spiders and provided a guided spider walk for staff at Cricklepit Garden.

From September 2025 to 2026, we were joined by Jack, a passionate local young person eager to gain experience in conservation. As one of the first participants in our fully funded Youth Pathways Traineeship programme, he received a bursary and worked with us and our partners to gain practical experience and build skills across the conservation sector.

The Youth Pathways Project, is part of the Two Moors Pine Marten Project and provides exciting opportunities for young people (13-25) from harder to reach audiences to make a positive difference in the natural world. It works closely with amazing youth partners, Young Devon and SPACE Youth Services.

Young Jack Standing on top of hill on Exmoor Radio Tracking with receiver close to his ear

During his first five months, Jack worked with lots of teams across Devon Wildlife Trust, from those working in our communities and schools, to species and habitat work with the pine marten and beaver projects.

Then he chose his specialism and continued to work with the Reserves and Communications Teams. Jack loved being outside on the sites seeing all the different wildlife and habitats, whilst doing varied reserve work. Also, filming and editing videos!

He learnt lots of new skills and gained new qualifications from brushcutter and first aid, to website editing and social media content creation.

You can read a blog written by Jack about the start of his Traineeship journey.

Zebra Jumping Spider up close on metal post

Jack also has an incredible knowledge and passion about spiders. He was able to photograph them whilst working at our sites and also wrote a blog about the spiders you can see in your garden. You can read his blog here.

For his final day with us, Jack hosted a walk for a large group of Devon Wildlife Trust staff in the garden of Cricklepit Mill, Exeter. He spoke about the incredible variety of spiders, rare and common ones, also how to identify the difference between them. He taught many conservation professionals new tricks, including how to use an electric toothbrush on spider webs to encourage spiders to reveal themselves.

We are incredibly grateful to have had him with us and are very proud of all he has achieved.

We look forward to following Jacks career and to welcoming our next Trainees who will be starting soon.

Learn more about the Youth Pathways Project