Featured Scientist

Morgan Knechtle is an environmental scientist with CDFW’s Northern Region in Yreka. He works on the Klamath River Project, which has a primary focus of estimating the return of adult salmon and steelhead to the Klamath and Trinity rivers. He is responsible for multiple field projects that manage salmonids in the Klamath River Basin, such as operating adult salmonid counting stations and coordinating adult spawning ground surveys on the Shasta River, Scott River and Bogus Creek, three highly productive salmonid tributaries to the Klamath River in Siskiyou County. Knechtle also assists with adult recovery efforts, which involve collecting biological information from returning adult salmon at Iron Gate Hatchery, and serves as one of CDFW’s technical representatives for the Klamath Dam Decommissioning Project, which involves the proposed elimination of four hydroelectric dams in northern California and Southern Oregon.

Knechtle earned a Bachelor of Science degree in freshwater fisheries from Humboldt State University and got his first job with CDFW as a scientific aide in the Russian River watershed. He was hired permanently in 2000 and spent four years working on salmonid life cycle monitoring stations on the Mendocino coast. Since 2004, he has worked with salmonids in the Klamath Basin, both on the Trinity River and in the tributaries to the Klamath River in Siskiyou County.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

My love for rivers inspired me to become a scientist. During college at Humboldt State University, I was spending all of my free time fishing for salmon and steelhead and came to the realization that I could study these animals and make a living working with them.

The ability to be an advocate for fishery resources brought me to CDFW. CDFW is one of the only places a scientist can work with fisheries and truly be an objective voice for the resource. Many other organizations do not have this luxury.

What is a typical day like for you at work?

It depends on the time of year. During the fall and winter when adult salmonids are returning to the Klamath River, my world is extremely busy running and participating in multiple field projects monitoring the return of these amazing species. During the spring and summer, I spend much more time in the office crunching numbers and writing reports.

My Chinook salmon work focuses on providing information that can help accurately forecast abundance. This enables us to provide fishing opportunities while maintaining enough fish in the river for future generations. My coho salmon monitoring work focuses on providing accurate abundance information to track the status and trends of this endangered species over time.

As a technical expert on the Klamath Dam Decommissioning Project, in cooperation with other technical experts from other state and federal agencies, I help minimize effects to aquatic species inhabiting the Klamath River during the decommissioning phase of the project. Additionally, I participate in post-dam removal planning projects, including creating plans on how to implement the Iron Gate Hatchery post dam removal and coordinate with Oregon scientists on the reintroduction of salmon above Iron Gate Dam, with a goal of ensuring the recovery of salmonids and aquatic species above the project area.

What is the most rewarding project that you have worked on for CDFW?

Although the project is not yet complete, the Klamath Dam Decommissioning Project has the potential to be the most rewarding project I have worked on. It stands to be the largest river restoration project to ever be completed in North America, and given that status, as one can imagine, the project has a lot of moving parts. The potential benefits to salmonids in the Klamath and the improvements to the health of the river itself could be enormous. The long-term predicted improvements to water quality, habitat availability, natural flow dynamics and restoration of natural processes to the Klamath River will improve conditions, for not only anadromous salmon and steelhead but also the rest of the plant and animal community that depend on the river for part or all of their life history.

What is the most challenging aspect of your career as an environmental scientist?

It is extremely challenging when social and political concerns get mixed in with natural resource management. Working with coho salmon in the Klamath Basin has been very challenging due to its listed status and the fact that their abundance is extremely low.

If you had free reign and unlimited funding, what scientific project would you most like to do?

With unlimited funding, I would like to track and monitor the recovery of spring Chinook in the upper Klamath River post dam removal. They are nearly extinct and they are thought to once have been the most abundant species in the Klamath River Basin.

What aspect of working on the Klamath River is particularly challenging or rewarding?

Multiple stakeholders -- which include Native American tribes, federal and state trustee agencies, and freshwater and ocean anglers -- in the Klamath Basin make some aspects of salmon management challenging. However, when progress is made to restore the river, it is also extremely rewarding because you know that groups with very different perspectives have come together, negotiated agreement and reached consensus on difficult issues.

What is your favorite species to interact with or study?

Steelhead trout are my favorite species to work with. Steelhead are the most elusive of the Klamath salmonids and their complex life history make them a very difficult species to study. They are also my favorite fish to catch.

Any advice for people considering careers in science or natural resources?

The most obvious is for folks to stay in school and graduate from college. In addition, volunteering and interning in their field of interest early in their education is a benefit to get a taste of what the career might really be like.

CDFW photos of Morgan Knechtle working along the Shasta River.

Sara Borok is an environmental scientist with the Klamath River project. She is responsible for counting the sport harvest on the Klamath and Trinity Rivers and for gathering natural spawner escapement data (which involves counting deceased fish which have finished spawning) on the Salmon River and approximately three dozen tributaries of the Klamath River above the Trinity River. She is also the co-coordinator of the Klamath Fish Health Assessment Team.

Borok initially studied forestry at Humboldt State University before changing her major and earning a Bachelor of Science degree in wildlife management. She jokes that she also “majored in minors” by earning minors in forestry, fisheries, art and music.

She has worked her entire CDFW career in the Klamath Basin, striving to “bridge the desires of our constituents and protecting the health of the fishery” as she counted live fish going out of the river and the dead fish that returned and spawned.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

Even when I was young I knew I wanted to work in the outdoors. I am from the era of “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” and I always wanted to be the assistant, “Jim.” He always had the cool jobs! I grew up in Southern California, and when I started high school, there was a wonderful summer school class, Outdoor Biology, that taught basic sampling techniques. We went to Catalina Island to do some marsh sampling, and I got hooked. I used to seek out wild places, often riding my bike up to Will Rogers State Park in Pacific Palisades and then hiking in four miles to find some solitude.

Who or what brought you to CDFW? What inspires you to stay?

When I was 16, I worked for the Youth Conservation Corps, and later at Will Rogers State Park, Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve and at Ft. Clatsop, which is part of Lewis and Clark National Historic Park. I started out with CDFW in 1985 as a seasonal aid working the Klamath Creel Crew for Jim Hopelain, a wildlife biologist who at that time served in my current position. I fell in love with the idea of getting paid to do this job out in the woods. I still cannot believe that I get paid for what I get to do.

What is a typical day like for you at work?

During the “creel season” in April through November, I help the crew at busy spots on the Klamath River by interviewing anglers about their effort and catch of salmon and steelhead. We keep track of the numbers because they dictate size restrictions. Once a certain number of fish have been caught, anglers can’t keep the big ones anymore.

I also help out during the “carcass season” in October through December by organizing crews with individuals drawn from CDFW as well as other state agencies, tribes, volunteer groups and schools. Those crews then are kept quite busy counting dead fish to determine the “floor escapement,” or the number of fish that are returning to the river to spawn in natural areas. We need to meet a minimum number before we can allow any kind of harvest.

I field a lot of complaints from anglers, typically regarding our regulations! It is helpful that I have a great group of people working for me and with me who do a lot of the hard work.

What is most challenging about working with fish?

I would say that wading through large amounts of swift-moving water is the most challenging aspect. In years such as this past season, when we had such heavy rains, we had a hard time getting out on the tributaries to get good counts of the few spawned-out fish that were out there. Other challenges, ones that have nothing to do with the weather, are gaining access to specific areas from private landowners and the simple matter of having to cover such a large geographic area.

What is special about working in the Klamath Basin?

The Klamath kind of grows on you. I have been working in the basin for 32 years (wow, it doesn’t seem that long!). Working with live fish is the best, but even during spawning season the beauty out on the rivers makes up for dealing with dead fish. There are also really wonderful people living and working up here. I have worked every Labor Day Weekend for the last 20 years, and I get to see some of the same families that come up to fish then. It is like a big family reunion.

What is the most rewarding project that you’ve worked on for CDFW?

I work with a huge cooperative group of agencies, tribes, non-government groups, volunteers and school kids. We all get along and work hard to get the work done. What is really rewarding to me is that we have school kids who come out and do the spawner surveys with us. The students are actually walking through the water along with CDFW staff, counting carcasses. Their enthusiasm in being out in the fields is always refreshing and amusing. There have been a few who fell in love with this type of work and went on to school in this type of field and then came back to work on this very project.

Any advice for people considering careers in science or natural resources?

Learn basic accounting, people management, vehicle repairs, public relations and logistics, as you will be spending more time on this kind of stuff than on the science.

I have been thinking of teaching a short class at Humboldt State University on all the other stuff like this that you will need to be a biologist/environmental scientist. People should also learn to work without the aid of fancy gadgets, as there may not be cell reception when you are out in the river or woods, and gadgets tend to fail when you need those most. Learn to improvise!