Featured Scientist

OSPR’s Jim Hughes and Annie Nelson evaluate an oil spill exercise at the Larkspur Ferry Terminal.


Annie Nelson and Ima Doty on the Schnyder dock in Eureka


Annie Nelson atop Donner Pass, where OSPR has responded to two past pipeline oil spills

Annie Nelson is in her second year as CDFW’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) specialist for best achievable technology, focusing on mechanical oil spill response equipment. She began her career with OSPR as a scientific aid a few months after earning her Bachelor of Science degree in wildlife management from Humboldt State University. She gained permanent employee status as an analyst, working in the Natural Resource Damage Assessment Program. She found it rewarding to witness and coordinate post-spill restoration efforts, but after about seven years, a move to the drills and exercises unit opened the door for her to the world of response preparedness as an environmental scientist. Establishing and fortifying that program took Nelson through the next eight years of her career, before accepting her current position.

What keeps her at OSPR are the wonderful people, the constant learning curve and the many unique opportunities the spill response world provides.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

In 5th or 6th grade, the cutest boy in my class expressed that science was his favorite subject. That was the spark for me. Once I started exploring science, I realized it was really cool and fun to learn. I enjoyed biology and chemistry during high school and became hooked on understanding how our planet operates – down to the molecular level.

What got you interested in working with wildlife?

My senior year of high school came with the opportunity to participate in the Regional Occupational Program (ROP) and I chose “Animal Careers.” The ROP offered classroom education as well as hands-on experience in your field of choice. When it was time to choose jobsites, most of my fellow classmates in the animal careers course worked with veterinarians. I was fortunate enough to get a spot with Wild Things, Inc., an exotic animal facility near my home. I prepared diets and fed the animals, handled them for educational shows and cleaned up after them. I got to work with a variety of wildlife species, from big cats to primates to birds and reptiles – even a sea lion. When it was time to look at colleges and career opportunities, I combined my love for animals with science and studied wildlife at Humboldt State.

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

My dad encouraged me to pursue a career with the state. CDFW was the first agency that came to mind. I applied for the warden cadet academy, wanting to enforce the laws that protect wildlife in California. Unfortunately, my vision disqualified me. I got my foot in the door with a CDFW scientific aid position in the Office of Spill Prevention and Response. I knew very little about oil spills at the time, but 17 years later I am a senior environmental scientist (specialist). My love for this team and continual learning since my first day on the job has kept me with OSPR.

What is a typical day like for you at work? Please describe a “day in the life.”

I usually spend my early morning hours researching online for any new articles that have come out regarding oil spill technology. My focus is mechanical equipment for containment and recovery, for example: boom, sorbents and skimmers. The goal is to evaluate as many as possible and develop a program for best practices. I also develop workshops. Right now, I’m helping to create an agenda for a workshop that focuses on response to spills of oils called bitumen. Bitumen is the consistency of peanut butter at room temperature and sinks in water, making cleanup difficult. This is an area that hasn’t had much advancement with technology but is a growing concern for responders.

As OSPR’s fisheries closure coordinator, I’m the contact person for calls during the work day from field staff who are either participating in an exercises or responding to actual spills for consultation regarding fishery closures due to oil spills. I gather information to provide the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), the agency that evaluates our information and provides recommendations on whether to close or keep the fishery open. Our agencies work together to determine whether a fisheries closure is necessary, where it will be, and how long it will last during oil spills. Currently, I am working on a presentation to take to our field responders that educates them about this process and their role in it. There is so much to learn, I am never bored!

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

In my second position at OSPR, I joined a brand new team that became the drills and exercises unit. Our role was to ensure that the oil industry in California was prepared to respond to spills. I helped build the program from the ground up, re-writing regulations and evaluating hundreds of response drills and exercises all over the state. Industry soon realized that we meant business and they were quick to comply. Improving spill preparedness through the relationships fostered between OSPR and the oil industry we regulate proved rewarding.

Over the course of your career, was there a discovery or an incident that surprised you?

The most jaw-dropping incident that has occurred during my career was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The Macondo well head poured more than 3 billion gallons of crude oil into the Gulf from 5,000 feet below the surface. Eleven people lost their lives when the rig blew up, and it took 87 days to cap the well. This still blows my mind to think about. Although I wasn’t one of them, quite of few of my OSPR co-workers responded to the incident. It was a proud moment for the OSPR team to bring experience and resources to the disaster and help.

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

I’ll stick with my current field. I’d love to conduct studies of the wildlife species most commonly injured by oil spills, in order to develop humane but highly effective hazing techniques and technology. In order to avoid mass wildlife casualties, quick containment of a spill is crucial; however, this doesn’t often occur. Hazing is sometimes necessary to keep animals away from the slick, but the effectiveness is hit-or-miss. I’d be interested in developing some new biology-based tools for hazing to reduce the need for rehabilitation (washing), which can be stressful on wildlife and take up resources.

What is the best thing about being a wildlife scientist?

Knowing that my work ultimately protects California’s wildlife from injury during oil spills is pretty great in itself, but my favorite part of the job is working directly with animals. It’s not every day that I get to handle a common murre or a grebe, but I’ve had opportunities to work in the oiled wildlife care facility in Cordelia, which brought me back to my high school days – feeding birds and cleaning cages. These experiences are always a treat.

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

I think that career seekers need to ask themselves three questions: What is my passion, what am I good at, and what opportunities are out there? If you can match up at least two of these with your chosen career path, you have a good chance for success. What I love about the fields of science and natural resources is that our planet is always changing. We will never know everything there is to know and there will always be new discoveries and a need for scientists to study, protect and improve our environment.

Top photo: Annie Nelson (right) and Andrea Moore prepare to board a tug and observe an on-water boom deployment in El Segundo.

CDFW photos

Stacy Sherman conducts fish sampling at Liberty Island in the north Delta.


Stacy and her husband, Marcus, a biology teacher at Stockton’s Stagg High School.


Stacy and her three stepsons – Owen, Jack and Charlie – pause for a photo overlooking Lake Tahoe.

Stacy Sherman is an environmental program manager based in the Bay-Delta Region’s Stockton Field Office. She heads CDFW’s Fish Restoration Program Monitoring Team, a group of eight scientists and staff charged with one specific but important task: monitoring and supporting efforts to restore 8,000 acres of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Suisun Marsh to tidal wetlands.

The restoration was mandated in 2008 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help at-risk fish populations in the Delta as a condition of operating the Central Valley and State Water Projects, which send water to the Central Valley and southern California.

Stacy joined CDFW in 2014 from the University of the Pacific in Stockton where she was an assistant professor of biology for seven years. She was born in Nebraska but raised in Baton Rouge, La. She holds a bachelor’s degree in zoology from Louisiana State University and a Ph.D. in marine biology and fisheries from the University of Miami, where she studied billfish larvae – baby sailfish and marlin – for her dissertation.

Fill us in on the Delta restoration efforts. Where are we in meeting the goal of restoring 8,000 acres to tidal wetlands?

It’s all in the pre-project planning phase. There are a lot of moving parts. The Department of Water Resources (DWR) is the lead agency and it’s DWR’s responsibility to actually do the restoration. Our team is relatively new. We exist to determine whether the restoration is effective and to provide the biological expertise.

DWR has acquired several sites. These are all on public land or properties purchased from willing sellers. Prospect Island in Solano County is one. Bradmoor Island is another. Many already have some marshy areas. DWR will dig out some more and punch some holes in the levees. The first project will probably be breached next year.

What’s so important about making these lands accessible to the tides and tidal influence?

Back before the Gold Rush, all of the Delta was wetland. After the land was reclaimed, we lost something like 97 percent of the marsh. The idea is that the tidal marsh is incredibly productive and our changes to it probably affected the food web. So the requirement to restore so much acreage to tidal wetlands is to increase the availability of food and habitat for listed fish species, particularly the Delta smelt but also salmon. When I talk about it publicly, I try to bring people back to what was here in the past and how productive it is and how a healthy environment is good for everyone.

Did you develop your passion and expertise in wetlands growing up and going to school in Louisiana?

I spent a lot of time on the water growing up, but not necessarily the marsh – mostly lakes. My family started going to this one little lake outside of Baton Rouge when I was like 4. It’s called False River and it’s an oxbow lake off the Mississippi River. We sailed and fished and swam there all the time.

When I was in college, I did some undergraduate research on the coast in the marsh. And my post-doctorate work is all in the marsh. That was actually in South Carolina.

What brought you to California and CDFW?

I decided to try the academic track and ended up in Stockton at the University of the Pacific teaching biology. The university is heavily skewed toward pre-dental and pharmacy so it wasn’t a great fit for me.

One of my former master’s students, Phillip Poirier, who is now my colleague here in the office, sent me this job ad and said, “Do you know anyone who would like to apply for this?” And I said, “That sounds really nice. I will apply for it.”

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I really enjoy getting together with smart people here who care about the estuary and want to see it improved. I get the chance to work with people within CDFW and across other agencies, nonprofits, consulting firms, and it’s really nice to see people working together toward the same goal. We might have differences of opinions but we are all trying to get to the same place.

California’s education leaders are concerned about the lack of girls and young women studying science and pursuing science and technology careers. Do you have any advice for them?

I think the key for any kid is to get them engaged, get them outside. Don’t give them answers. Give them a chance to work things out – some of the inquiry-based science.

My husband actually teaches high school biology at Stagg High School in Stockton and we talk about this a lot. He takes his students out to the Calaveras River, which runs right through Stockton. Experiences like that for me – hands-on, getting outside, answering questions, being able to be creative – is what made this field really attractive.

When I was in middle school, the public school I attended offered marine biology and that was my first time to a marine lab and an overnight field trip. And then at LSU, I had all of these great field experiences and a really great ichthyology professor who kind of nudged me and encouraged me along the way.

You have a unique perspective as an educator and now as a CDFW manager trying to hire scientists. Are universities doing enough to prepare the next generation of natural resource scientists?

I think it’s variable. There are places that do have strong programs that really do prepare students well. I’ve had some amazing staff. We had a scientific aide here, Sunny Lee, who graduated from UC Santa Barbara and he came in with just so many skills – good writing and he already knew a bunch of invertebrates. He caught on to our process really quickly so that was great. On the other hand, you see applications from those who graduated with a degree in environmental studies – environmental science majors even – who say, “This will be a really great job for me. I really want to do this and get outside.” And I don’t think some of those applicants necessarily grasp the rigor involved – that this is serious science and it’s not just playing around outside.

What advice would you give a young person thinking about a career in natural resources?

Talk to people in the field before you make a decision about your school or the program you want to study. Go out and volunteer if you can. Make contacts. I would recommend they pay a lot of attention to math and statistics especially. Get used to working hard. Be the hardest worker in the room as that’s what’s going to get you along.

Tell us something about yourself many people would be surprised to learn.

Most people are surprised to find out I’m part Cajun. My mom is Cajun. I get a lot of questions about my lack of accent.

All photos courtesy of Stacy Sherman

Tim working a deer capture in Round Valley. The deer was captured with a net gun, blindfolded, and hobbled for helicopter transport to base camp or a central processing station.


Tim radio-collared and took samples from this anesthetized black bear during the 2016 Eastern Sierra Black Bear Study.

Tim Taylor is an environmental scientist for CDFW’s Inland Desert Region, which includes Imperial, Inyo, Mono, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. He has spent his entire 17-year CDFW career in a single area of study – the Eastern Sierra – and he is only the third Mono County unit biologist in department history.

Like many other CDFW scientists, Tim earned his Bachelor of Science in wildlife management at Humboldt State. The Southern California native did myriad odd jobs to get through college, including working on a ski lift, putting up drywall and even thinning trees and fighting fires. After college, he worked as an independent biologist throughout California, Oregon and Nevada, conducting wildlife assessment surveys for a wide range of threatened and endangered species including desert tortoise, red-legged frog, spotted owl and Sierra Nevada red fox.

Today, Tim’s primary job duties include monitoring diverse wildlife species – including sage grouse, deer, pronghorn and bears – in a part of the state most Californians never have the opportunity to experience.

Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in wildlife biology?

When I was a kid growing up in the June Lake area of the eastern Sierra, I always knew I wanted to be a wildlife biologist. I had the good fortune of getting to know the very first CDFW wildlife biologist for the Mono unit, Andy Anderson, and he took me into the field with him whenever possible. I got to participate in some amazing wildlife work, like trapping and relocating nuisance black bears (when we used to do that!), rearing Canada goose goslings, counting strutting sage-grouse and helping at deer hunter check stations. This work provided me with an early appreciation and knowledge of eastern Sierra wildlife and their habitats, and from that time on, the Mono unit biologist position became my dream job.

After Andy retired, I became good friends with his successor, Ron Thomas. He was also a great mentor. I started working for CDFW in the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep program with the hope of eventually transferring to the Mono unit position. Fortunately, after Ron retired, I was in the right place at the right time.

What are your current responsibilities?

Working as a unit wildlife biologist requires being a generalist with the knowledge and understanding of all wildlife that inhabit my work area. During any given day I can deal with a number of different wildlife species issues like sage-grouse habitat conservation, mule deer and pronghorn research, nuisance black bear complaints and talking with deer hunters about the best place to find a buck. My duties include wildlife resource assessment, habitat enhancement planning and implementation, hunting management, nuisance wildlife response and environmental review. I am currently involved with a number of different wildlife research projects, including a sage-grouse translocation effort to rescue a small, isolated sub-population near the Mono basin and a GPS collaring study of black bears to determine home range distribution and habitat use.

I also occasionally provide advice on how to reduce human-bear conflicts at the Mountain Warfare Training Center, a US Marine Corps installation in Mono County. I review environmental documents that relate to their training area, and work with new recruits on how to identify animals, as part of their survival training.

Which species do you work with most frequently?

Mule deer are the most conspicuous and widespread large mammal in the eastern Sierra. Mono county supports five large migratory herds. I manage 2 mule deer hunt zones, X12 and X9a. Hunt zone X12 comprises three herds that occupy northern Mono County. These are interstate herds that are jointly managed for hunting purposes by CDFW and the Nevada Department of Wildlife. Zone X9a comprises two herds that occupy southern and central Mono County. Those are managed solely by CDFW. Along with other CDFW biologists, I conduct population surveys and collect data on vital rates and nutritional condition as part of an integrated population monitoring approach for assessing the status of local deer herds.

Mono County also supports a large population of greater sage-grouse, which is part of the Bi-state Distinct Population Segment (DPS) of greater sage-grouse. The Bi-state DPS, which is genetically distinct from other sage-grouse across the range, occupies sagebrush habitat in Inyo and Mono counties in California and Douglas, Mineral, Lyon and Esmeralda counties in Nevada. Sage-grouse is a sagebrush obligate species, meaning it relies on sagebrush for its survival. They are also an umbrella species, used in making conservation related decisions that affect the sagebrush ecosystem. Our efforts to conserve the sage-grouse indirectly protects other sagebrush obligate species, such as pygmy rabbit and Brewer’s sparrow, that inhabit the sagebrush ecosystem.

Then there’s the eastern Sierra black bear. Their population has increased dramatically over the last 10 years, and therefore has created numerous management challenges. In most of the rural east side towns there is no regular garbage pickup, so people store their trash and take it to a landfill. This creates a situation where bears have open access to garbage that is not properly secured in a building or bear-proof container. Once a bear has become food-conditioned, it’s pretty much over. It will start breaking into homes and cabins next.

What project or accomplishment are you most proud of?

In 2007, CDFW acquired 1,160 acres of critical greater sage-grouse habitat in northern Mono County, which included two strutting grounds, brood rearing meadows and winter habitat. Approximately 900 of the 1,160 acres was proposed to be subdivided into 40 acre parcels, which included the only two remaining leks for this sub-population of sage-grouse, as well as some critical mule deer migration and summer range habitat. CDFW acted in a timely manner in acquiring the property, and in doing so, prevented the loss of this critical sage-grouse habitat.

Without the acquisition and eventual conversion of the property into a State Wildlife Area, these leks would have been destroyed resulting in the extirpation of this sage-grouse sub-population.

The acquisition was funded by the Wildlife Conservation Board, and was especially important because it was one of the many conservation actions that helped to prevent the federal listing of the Bi-state greater sage-grouse.

What project would you most like to do, given unlimited time or resources?

I would implement several much needed wildlife crossing projects that would include a combination of underpasses, overpasses and fencing to allow deer, bears and other wildlife safe passage across highway 395 in Mono County.

What do you love most about your job?

The fact that I have the flexibility to work with so many different wildlife species on so many different projects.

What advice would you have for a young scientist wanting to do what you do?

Try to become as diversified as possible with respect to your knowledge of wildlife throughout the state. Working as a unit biologist requires multiple species management so become a naturalist and develop a broad understanding of the species that inhabit your work area.

Photos courtesy of Tim Taylor
Top photo: Tim working on a Round Valley deer herd capture team