Featured Scientist

Jack Crayon is an Environmental Scientist for CDFW’s Inland Desert Region, which includes Imperial, Inyo, Mono, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Jack has spent his entire 16-year career on a single area of study: the Salton Sea.

Jack earned a B.S. from UC Davis and a M.S. from UC Riverside. He has worked in the lab and in the field for a number of US Geological Survey researchers. Originally from upstate New York, Jack developed his passion for the outdoors and its denizens when he was still very young. After mostly working in the trades after high school, he spent 11 years working for the (then) San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, including several years as an elephant keeper. Today primary job duties include study and analysis of Salton Sea fish and wildlife issues and how the sea impacts the ecology of the region and, ultimately, the entire west coast.

Did someone or something inspire you to study science or the environment?

While at the Wild Animal Park, I volunteered in a scientist’s lab and realized I really wanted to work in a more impactful capacity than just caring for captive wildlife. I saw how the power of research was driving conservation efforts.

What is your favorite area or species to study?

I caught my first snake in the late ‘50s. I’ve been infected with a severe case of herpetology ever since. Working around the Salton Sea I run into sidewinders and Western Diamondback rattlesnakes – the stuff of my childhood dreams!

What inspires you in your job or area of study?

The good-hearted people I have met and worked with who have decided to spend their lives trying to make things better in the natural resources world.

Why is the Salton Sea important?

The Salton Sea is a very large example of a phenomenon I recognized years ago: that the degraded and limited habitats that have been damaged by human development and recreational activities can still harbor vital resources for wildlife. For all its supposed unattractiveness, the lake generates unbelievable productivity for wildlife. It has become a birder’s paradise since its accidental inception. And, most importantly, we have lost so much of California’s natural wetlands … this lake has now become an irreplaceable surrogate habitat. In many cases, the bird species using the Salton Sea no longer have other options available for resting and feeding during migration.

What is CDFW’s role in the Salton Sea restoration?

In the 1950s and 1960s, CDFW was deeply invested in establishing and supporting a sport fishery here. This ended up becoming a world-class angling opportunity. But as the water quality has deteriorated over the years, our focus and emphasis have shifted to broader-scale environmental issues that go far beyond just the loss of a recreational fishery. Much of what we have engaged in during the last decade – analyzing the environmental threats and designing restoration strategies – has been driven by legislative directives.

Over the last century, the lake has become so much more than just a good place to fish. Now, its decline raises economic and human health issues. We no longer work in an arena of simple wildlife conservation. We sit at the table with a large and diverse array of stakeholders, including Native American tribes, federal agencies, local governments, environmental advocacy groups and water districts. The challenge now facing the Department is to achieve our wildlife management efforts within a broad and complex setting of social, political and economic concerns.

What should people know about the desert region? How does it affect the rest of the state?

The average person thinks the desert is an unproductive place – a wasteland of sorts. It sometimes becomes an easy target for development since people assume it has less ecological value than stands of redwoods, or salmon-filled streams. But so much of its botanical beauty is seasonal and ephemeral. So much of the wildlife diversity spends a large part of lifetime underground, or is active only at night. The unique adaptations of desert dwelling plants and wildlife are fascinating.

What would a day in the field be for you?

Lately, I’m often called upon to provide mini-workshops on the Salton Sea, traveling with others to highlight the ecological values of the lake and letting them experience some of the truly awe-inspiring visual treats you only can see from an air boat.

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

Two projects were interwoven. The first was developing and implementing a sampling protocol to monitor the Salton Sea fisheries. There were periodic fish die-offs numbering in the millions in the lake, and the causes weren’t fully understood. The second was working with US Fish and Wildlife to implement bird salvage efforts during the botulism events that plagued the lake. During the late 1990s the Salton Sea experienced die-offs of fish-eating birds numbering in the tens of thousands. It turned out that they were being poisoned by eating the dying fish, but then their carcasses became vectors for additional poisoning of many other bird species, from ducks to egrets. Sick birds could be saved with Vitamin K and fluids, and collecting the dead birds would break the cycle of poisoning. So summertime would require all hands on deck, collecting as many dead and dying birds as possible from a moving air boat.

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

The Salton Sea’s sport fisheries were established back in the 1950s when the Department stocked the lake with several species from the Gulf of California. Orangemouth corvina, Gulf croaker and sargo took hold and provided hugely successful fisheries. During the 1960s, the Salton Sea State Recreation Area was a popular spot for anglers, and it hosted more visitors than Yosemite National Park during those times. Fish die-offs occurred occasionally throughout the lake’s history, but the fisheries always rebounded.

After we started to sample the Salton Sea fisheries, we detected the crash of the sport fish populations over a single year’s time. It was unusually abrupt, and we met a lot of skepticism from the local folks who insisted it was just part of the fisheries’ “cycle,” and the fish would come bounding back as they had before.

What was different this time was the suppression of reproduction by some unique water quality conditions. The increasingly saline water body was now 50 percent more salty than the ocean these marine species came from. At the same time, scientists were piecing together a driver behind the fish kills totally different from the algae blooms which everyone assumed were responsible. Hydrogen sulfide and ammonia (products from the microbial decomposition of organic matter) accumulate at the lake bottom.  When the lower water is mixed during summertime wind events, these chemicals strip the oxygen from the entire water column. In the early 2000s, these upwellings were so persistent and widespread that it meant the end of the three sport fish species.

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

There are many secretive and understudied reptile and amphibian species for which we have so little information. I’d love to use a dog trained to scent track species like rubber boas or Couch’s spadefoot, and fill in the blanks about their distribution.

What is the best thing about being a wildlife scientist?

As a CDFW employee, I get to go places, see things and handle animals in ways I could never do as a private citizen. One special treat I like to give visitors is to take a boat to the middle of the lake and turn off the engine. I ask them to just be silent and experience the feeling of complete detachment from civilization.

The world of science and managing natural resources is often confusing or mysterious for the average person. What is it about the work you do that you’d most like us to know that will take away the mystery?

This is a really tough question. The education, training and experience that wildlife professionals acquire allow them to work from a perspective of profound expertise, which isn’t accessible to the average person. This is what creates the “mystery.” I think the most impactful way of getting people to understand our work is being done on television, e.g., on PBS and National Geographic specials.

Is there a preconception about scientists you would like to dispel?

Yes – the whole ivory tower thing. There are indeed scientists who are locked away in their own world of basic research. The ones I call friends and colleagues are personable and humorous, with a heightened awareness of the political framework within which we operate. They’re passionate about seeing their work having a positive impact on the “real” world.

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

Get as much insight as you can about the career you seek – from internships, volunteering and talking to people who do the job you want to do. What we do is often presented as overly glamorous or exciting on TV. Find out what it’s like down in the trenches.

Colleen Young is an Environmental Scientist for CDFW’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center in Santa Cruz. Her primary job duties include oil spill contingency planning for sea otters and other marine wildlife, maintaining response equipment and working as part of the Wildlife Recovery team during spills.

During non-spill times, Colleen’s responsibilities shift to sea otter research and conservation projects. This work includes ground and aerial sea otter census surveys, sea otter stranding response, performing postmortem examinations on sea otters and occasionally other species, tagging and monitoring wild sea otters and working on sea otter disturbance issues. She is on the CDFW SCUBA diving team and is one of two CDFW divers trained to use re-breathers to capture sea otters. These projects are done in close collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, UC Santa Cruz, Sea Otter Savvy and other partner organizations.

Colleen earned a B.S. in Animal Biology from UC Davis in 2006 and an M.S. in Marine Science with an emphasis in Vertebrate Ecology from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories/San Jose State University in 2009. She began working as a scientific aide for CDFW in 2010 and was hired for her current position in 2011. Colleen is grateful to have a job that involves working with such an ecologically important, threatened species, and that allows her to work outside and live along California’s beautiful Central Coast.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

I had some really amazing science teachers in high school that showed me that science was really fun and interesting. When I started volunteering to help with research projects when I was an undergraduate in college, I knew that doing scientific research was something that I wanted to pursue further. When I got certified to SCUBA dive and started doing research in and around the ocean, I knew I wanted to do that for a career.

What got you interested in working with wildlife?

Growing up we had lots of pets, so I’ve always had a deep connection with and respect for animals. I considered pursuing a career involving companion animals, but I really enjoy working outside, in nature, and wild animals absolutely fascinate and amaze me. I was hooked on wildlife after doing an internship studying wild bottlenose dolphins.

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

Just after finishing graduate school I was hired to work at the CDFW office in Santa Cruz to work on some grant-funded seabird projects. I really enjoyed the work that I was doing and saw great value in the sea otter work that my CDFW colleagues were doing, so when a permanent job became available, applying was a no-brainer. I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon, since I love my job and I get to live in this beautiful place.

What is a typical day like for you at work?

There is no such thing as a typical day for me, which is just the way I like it. It is very unusual for me to spend a whole day working at my desk. You can usually find me working in our necropsy lab, on the beach responding to a stranded sea otter call, working on oil spill preparedness (testing equipment, working on protocols, etc.) or doing a proficiency dive with my dive buddy so we’re ready for our next round of sea otter captures. At the end of the day, I always try to read and respond to emails, but I often get interrupted by a stranding call, so I can’t always answer emails as quickly as I’d like.

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

I think probably the Santa Barbara oil spill near Refugio State Beach in 2015. This was my first major spill since starting at the Department and I worked as part of the Wildlife Recovery team. It was really rewarding to collect all those oiled animals, which likely would’ve died without our help.

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

I am surprised all the time! A big part of my job is performing necropsies (animal autopsies) on sea otters, and sometimes other species as well. Often it looks like the cause of death will be obvious, but when we get inside we see all sorts of weird, unexpected things. That’s one of the things that keeps my job fun and interesting … we never know what we’re going to find!

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

I would love to work more on one of my ongoing projects, which is looking into the mechanism by which some sea otters acquire purple staining on their teeth and bones. This phenomenon, known as echinochrome staining, has been documented for decades, and is extremely common in sea otters. It almost certainly occurs when sea otters consume copious amounts of echinochrome-containing prey items like sea urchins and other echinoderms, but the mechanism and physiology of the process has not been described. I would love to have time (and funding) to really understand how and when staining occurs, and whether there are any individual health implications, or broader ecological implications, of this process. Until I have unlimited time and funding though, I’ll just keep working on this project a little at a time.

What is the best thing about being a wildlife scientist?

I get to spend so much time outside being active. I spend a lot of time on the beach, on the ocean and in the ocean (diving), and most of it is pretty physical, so I get to exercise and spend time in nature as part of my job. Oh, and working with animals is pretty cool too. Doesn’t get any better than that!

The world of science and managing natural resources is often confusing or mysterious for the average person. What is it about the work you do that you’d most like us to know that will take away the mystery?

Effective management of natural resources should be based on good scientific data. It takes time to develop protocols, to collect and analyze data, and to summarize and disseminate findings. So sometimes when it looks like no action is being taken on an issue there are probably people working hard behind the scenes on it. Furthermore, it can be difficult for one program or even one agency to collect all the adequate scientific data that is needed to make good management decisions. Therefore, collaboration is key. Agencies and organizations often work together to collect data and implement management decisions. In the case of sea otters, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has management authority, but CDFW and other agencies and organizations work collaboratively with USFWS to collect and share data that help inform management decisions. Having multiple partners can sometimes slow things down, but in the end usually yields better results.

Is there a preconception about scientists you would like to dispel?

I can speak most to marine biologists. When most people think of marine biologists, they picture someone training and hugging dolphins, or getting up close and personal with cute, charismatic animals all the time. In reality though, marine biology is not very glamorous or easy work. It often requires working long hours, sometimes very early or late, depending on the tides. You are often wet, cold, dirty and stinky. Many biologists never even lay hands on the animals they are studying … they collect and/or study scat (poop), tracks and photographs, and make observations from afar. Some biologists, like me, mainly study their species by examining dead animals, which can be stinky and gross, but also extremely interesting and informative.

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

Get as much hands-on field experience as possible. Not only does that allow you to figure out what types of work you do and do not like, but having field experience is a huge advantage when applying for jobs. Also, attend conferences and events that will allow you to network with people who have careers you are interested in. Ask them questions about what they do and don’t like about their jobs, and what kind of experience and education you need to get that type of job.

Terri Weist is an environmental scientist who works out of the CDFW North Central Region office in Rancho Cordova. She is responsible for managing five wildlife areas located in Plumas and Sierra counties (Hallelujah Junction, Antelope Valley-Smithneck, Warner Valley, Crocker Meadows and Chilcoot) and conducting population studies on elk and deer in the North Central Region.

Weist got her first Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology from California State University, Long Beach and her second Bachelor of Science degree in Wildlife Management at Humboldt State University. After working as a seasonal aid for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife sampling bottomfish in Eureka, she pursued a Master’s of Science degree in Wildlife Management from Humboldt State University. The emphasis of her master’s thesis was studying habitat use by mule deer near Mt. Shasta.

She was hired permanently by CDFW in 1991. Her work has included surveying deer, elk and pronghorn from both fixed wing airplanes and helicopters, capturing deer, elk and bears (including entering bear dens to count the young and collar the females) and helping with Canada goose captures. The purpose of the captures is to monitor movement, populations and survival of the various species.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

I grew up in southern California where people were abundant but wildlife was not. Experiencing nature was not readily available to me. But I was drawn to nature for that very reason. Nature was a mystery to me and I needed to learn more about wildlife and the environment.

What got you interested in working with wildlife?

My interest was inspired by the environmental revolution of the 1970s and the wildlife shows I watched as a young girl growing up -- particularly the show “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” which was very popular at the time. I remembered watching (host) Marlin Perkins and thinking I wanted to do his job when I grew up! And I came pretty darn close.

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

Opportunities to work with wild animals are rather limited to resource agencies, non-profit organizations or zoos. Once I went to graduate school and worked at a few seasonal jobs with CDFW, I realized that I found my niche. My inspiration to stay comes from the moments in my job when I’m helping wildlife, learning something new every day and the camaraderie I have with my colleagues. 

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

When I was a graduate student at Humboldt State University, I studied mule deer in Northern California for my master’s thesis. This project was developed by Tim Burton, a longtime CDFW biologist in Siskiyou County. That project opened the door for me and prepared me for my life’s journey with CDFW.

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

I would love to conduct a study to determine fecundity (the ability to produce abundant healthy growth or offspring) and fawn recruitment (the young living long enough to become adults) on our migratory deer populations. This effort would help determine major causes of mortality, predation rates, disease and other factors that affect abundance of this important wildlife resource.

What is the best thing about being a wildlife scientist?

It’s interesting that when I tell people what I do, I often hear that they had wanted to pursue this career too or what a great job to have. I feel great pride in what I do and it can be quite exciting at times.

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

First, be patient. It took me a long time and lots of seasonal jobs to get here. Take any job to get into the field -- don’t limit yourself. My first jobs were in fisheries, which helped me meet people and learn about the department. Learn to write well. Get an advanced degree because it helps advance critical thinking skills.

Is there a preconception about scientists you would like to dispel?

I prefer the term “biologist” over “scientist” for that very reason. Biologists study living organisms, their distribution and relationship to the species around them. The term is more descriptive of what we do.

What is it about the work you do that you’d most like us to know?

I think the scientific terminology often gets in the way of communicating with the average person. People can be intimidated by the jargon or suspicious of the message simply because we don’t explain it in terms that they understand. Conversely, people sometimes think we know everything about everything, which is so far from the truth. For example, why don’t I know how many bears live in Plumas County? While scientists strive for precision and accuracy, we do not have the resources (time or money) to get the answers we all want to know. Managing natural resources is more about managing people than wildlife since we have little to no control of the factors that drive populations (habitat, disease and predation).

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

If I’m honest, it’s trying to educate the public regarding nuisance wildlife and convince them that they have to change their behavior to live with, not against, wildlife.

What is your favorite species to interact with or study?

Mule deer, because that was the animal I studied for two years for my master’s thesis and I still enjoy learning more about them.

What is a typical day like for you at work?

Some days I am in the office, responding to emails, answering phone calls from the public, updating data files, catching up on all the paperwork that piles up or responding to wildlife issues (such as nuisance complaints or dead animals). Other days, I’m in the field collecting data on a particular project or attending to our wildlife area needs (fencing, maintenance, etc.). On really good days, I get to capture and radio collar deer or elk to continue learning more about the species that we, as a department, are responsible for maintaining for future generations.