Featured Scientist

Jennifer Hemmert, Biologist


Survey to assess native rainbow trout at Marion Creek (left to right: Russell Barabe, Tawny Hoemke, Kerwin Russell (Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation District), Paul Nutting, Jennifer in water)


Loading native rainbows rescued from West Fork San Gabriel Creek (Jennifer in truck, Yoselin Caliz, Lauren Hall)


Adult native rainbow trout from Marion Creek


Offspring rainbow trout from Marion Creek

Jennifer Hemmert has taken an interesting route before landing with the Department of Fish and Wildlife as a wild trout biologist and experiencing a career highlight of saving a species of fire-threatened fish three different times. Born in Ohio and a graduate of Ohio State (yes, she is a huge fan of Ohio State football), she has worked in medical research and at a marine park in Hawaii called Dolphin Discovery.  Later she worked for the environmental non-profit group Sierra Nevada Alliance as an AmeriCorps member, UC Davis and the state Department of Water Resources. With CDFW since 2012, Jennifer’s trout biology work is done in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

When did you first know science was a possibility for your career?

Believe it or not, it goes back to grade school. I had an incredible science teacher in the fourth grade, and I knew that biology was my passion. It was his encouragement because he said any student can follow their passion, and if that passion is in math, science, or engineering, one could really shape the future. And so, it goes back to my grade school teacher, Mr. Seas. As a kid, I thought I was going to be either a marine biologist or a veterinarian; I always knew I wanted to work with animals. Also, my focus on fisheries is integrated with my childhood of spending time up on a small lake on the border of Ohio and Indiana. We would spend our summers there fishing, boating and swimming.

What’s a typical day for a wild trout biologist in California?

I work under the Heritage and Wild Trout Program and our mission is to protect the habitats and fish populations within our designated areas throughout the state. We also create recreational opportunities for anglers related to trout fishing. The work is weather-dependent, and in the winter months I am working on reports. There is a seven to eight month window that starts in the spring for field work and we go out in crews of four to six people to do fisheries and habitat assessments on streams in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. We have backpacks that use electric shock, to stun the fish in the streams, and crew members net the fish and place them into buckets. Then we take weight and length measurements on those fish before returning them to the waterway. We are checking on not just the size but also the health and condition of the fish. Through a larger survey, we block the stream with nets and we use the collected electrofishing data to arrive at population estimates.

People might think of those areas as being in the desert. How prevalent are trout and streams in those counties?

As we head south in the state, the quantity of water decreases due to the arid nature. But in the higher elevation streams, there once was historical connectivity for fish to the ocean before humans changed the landscape for the conveyance of water. There were native populations of trout in waters before humans began creating dams and concreting waterways. Some of those populations still exist here in the State and Southern California. The department also creates recreational opportunities by raising trout in two large hatcheries nearby and placing them into waters for anglers. We have two streams designated as wild trout streams. There is Bear Creek, a tributary out of Big Bear Lake, which connects with the Santa Ana River. The second wild trout stream is Deep Creek, which is in the San Bernardino National Mountains and meets up with the Mojave River.

What's the biggest challenge for fish being able to do well, grow and thrive in your region?

A lot of it has to with quantity and quality of water. For fish to thrive, they need cold water and enough water. In times of drought, they can survive extreme and severe habitat changes caused by climate change, but sometimes they need a little help from our staff. Fish are resilient to adapt. They often are challenged by habitat problems that are related to forest fires in fire affected areas.

Since you brought that up, can you talk about an amazing achievement following the Holy Fire in 2018?

The Holy Fire was located in Riverside and Orange counties. Although I’m a fish biologist, I watch forest fires intently and weather forecasts – things not necessarily related to fish, or the biology and species themselves.  There had not been a fire in that area for 30 or 40 years, and a lot of vegetation had grown in and was extremely dry. Since the practice of keeping record of where fires burn, there is no information available that Coldwater Canyon had ever had a forest fire. We knew this was an area that would burn very hot and very fast. This fire moved from ridgeline to ridgeline throughout the stream corridor. We work closely with the Forest Service, which studies the amount of sediment that will move through a watershed during a large rain event. It was determined there would be up to hundreds of thousands of cubic yards that would move within most of the surrounding canyons burned by the fire in both Riverside and Orange counties.  We needed to move fish from that corridor into our hatchery system.

Which stream did you need to move fish from?

The fish were moved from Coldwater Creek in the Cleveland National Forest, where there was a native trout population.  Pre-drought, the population was estimated between 1,000-1,500 trout, and post drought about half of that number survived after four years of these dry conditions. The population estimate was between 400 and 500 fish post-fire, so it was determined we would remove half of the fish from the stream, taking everything we could safely electroshock, and move them into the Mojave River Hatchery.

Did that area have the displacement of debris they were anticipating?

Yes, there was a very large rain event that moved a lot of material into the waterway, as the canyon hillsides had no living vegetation to stabilize now exposed soils. That stream had a chocolate milk appearance after the heavy rain and these fish would have struggled to survive because they would be overwhelmed by the debris. Fish suffocate due insufficient oxygen passing across their gills and the floating sand particles in the water disorientate the fish.

These fish were moved more than once and that’s pretty unusual isn’t it?

Yes, it is unusual. A lot of times fish are taken to a nearby watershed that is not burned. In this case, due to the severity of this fire the nearby habitat was not suitable, so we moved them to the hatchery. Those fish stayed there for about six months before we had a few mechanical issues and had to do an emergency evacuation into Marion Creek in Riverside County, near the town of Idyllwild. We were monitoring the fish in Marion Creek, and were ecstatic to see that they had enough gravel for spawning and were able to naturally reproduce. But it was another dry year and we knew the stream water was significantly decreasing, so in early November we moved them back into Coldwater Creek. The habitat had improved and was suitable again for the fish to be moved back to their home.

How are they doing back at Coldwater Creek?

The habitat is repaired. We have aquatic invertebrates, and we have a lot of willows and vegetation that provide shade, so water temperatures are cold. This year we are looking forward to seeing if we have reproduction and we will assess what the population numbers look like. I want to add that this was done by an entire team of biologists and others from Fish and Wildlife, the Forest Service from both the Cleveland and San Bernardino National Forests, and Riverside Corona Resource Conservation District.

Changing gears a bit, if you weren’t a fisheries biologist what would you have done for a career?

I have always wanted to be a scuba instructor. In my personal life, I scuba dive off the coast of California, Mexico and Hawaii. I always thought I might live and work on an island, where I can have my toes in the sand, watch the sunrise and sunset, and swim with sea life. I have traveled to Honduras twice to scuba dive, plus have done dives in freshwater lakes since I was certified. Alternatively, I also wanted to be a boat captain on possibly a sailboat/dive vessel. After I retire, who knows what and where my next work adventure will take me, but I am sure it will involve water.

What’s the thrill that comes with scuba diving?

A lot of scuba divers like to see the big apex predators that are in the water. But for me, it is all the little fish and little invertebrates, and to be quite honest, seahorses are my favorite. I mean turtles are awesome to see as well as stingrays and sharks, but for me, it is all the little fish. I like seahorses the most.

What’s the attraction to sea horses?

As a child I would always draw seahorses, it was kind of an obsession. I would doodle them all over my notebooks. I am fascinated with how they sway with the currents. They attach themselves with their tails to grasses and their mate and just wave with the currents. They can be camouflaged, colorful and beautiful and are just intriguing to me. Fun facts are that they eat constantly, are horrible swimmers, and mate for life. While these points make seahorses more fascinating as a species, one more critical fact to remember is that ecosystems for all marine life need to be healthy and protected. Pressing threats, such as increasing ocean temperatures and trash as our global marine debris accelerates, continue to be growing problems.

CDFW Photos

While conducting beach seine surveys for surf zone fish at Año Nuevo State Marine Reserve, Chenchen Shen and researchers from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories found a juvenile salmon shark washed up on the beach.

Marine Protected Areas Management Project staff from Eureka, San Carlos, and Los Alamitos come together for a meeting at USC’s Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island (from left to right: Sara Worden, Amanda Van Diggelen, Steve Wertz, Mike Prall, Chenchen Shen, Becky Ota).


Chenchen Shen on a research fishing trip with CCFRP at Point Lobos State Marine Reserve.


Ocean Salmon Project and Groundfish Management Project staff return from a successful fishing trip along the San Francisco coast (from left to right back row: Melodie Palmer-Zwahlen, Traci Larinto, Melanie Parker, Joanna Grebel, Caroline McKnight, Melissa Mandrup, Alex Letvin, Barry Miller, John Budrick; from left to right front row: Chenchen Shen, Jennifer Simon, Andrew Klein, Vanessa Gusman, Marci Yaremko, Brett Kormos).


Chenchen Shen and Marine Protected Areas Management Project co-worker Sara Worden representing CDFW and conducting public outreach at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, a San Mateo County Park located within the Montara State Marine Reserve and Pillar Point State Marine Conservation Area.

Scattered along the coast of California lies a network of 124 protected marine and estuarine waters. These Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) encompass around 16 percent of California’s state waters from Oregon to the US/Mexico border. MPAs have different classifications, such as State Marine Reserve or State Marine Conservation Area, but they all have the same goal: to protect and conserve marine life and habitat in accordance with the Marine Life Protection Act. CDFW is the lead management agency overseeing the MPA network pursuant to the Marine Managed Areas Improvement Act.

The MPA Statewide Management Project is run by a small team of dedicated staff within the Marine Region. One of these staff is Chenchen Shen, an environmental scientist working out of San Carlos in the San Francisco Bay Area. Chenchen’s focus is on MPAs from the Sonoma Coast down to San Luis Obispo. She joined the Department in 2017 and worked for the Ocean Salmon Project for two years before joining MPA Management. CDFW is a member of a larger collaborative MPA Management Program.

Chenchen grew up in the Bay Area and completed her undergrad at Princeton University before earning her PhD at Oregon State University.

What piqued your interest in biology and marine ecosystems?

Both of my parents work in medical science and my interest in biology stemmed from their influence. I was originally leaning towards the medical field, but as I went through the coursework from cells to ecosystems in high school biology, I found myself more interested in biological systems that are outside the human body and affect how the environment works. That led me to pursue an undergraduate degree in ecology, followed by a PhD specializing in rocky intertidal marine systems.

A lot of people grow up wanting to become a marine biologist, drawn to the big things like sharks and whales and coral reefs. I was like that too, but in college I got an internship at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences that provided me with a different perspective. During that internship I measured the nutrients in sea water and investigated how phytoplankton would grow in different nutrient environments. That really helped me gain an appreciation for the small, unseen things in the ocean and understand it from the bottom up.

How did you get started with CDFW?

I like doing research, but I always wanted to do something more applied and focused in conservation and management after grad school. That’s how I ended up at CDFW, where science plays a central role in dealing with on the ground issues balancing resource use with conservation.

What exactly is the MPA Management Program?

In 2012, California created the nation’s first statewide ecologically connected network of MPAs. The network is globally recognized for its highly collaborative, transparent and iterative planning process guided by the advice of scientists, stakeholders, resource managers and interested members of the public from 2004 to 2012. It is one of the largest ecologically connected MPA networks in the world. After the network was established, the MPA Management Program was created to address four main management tasks: research and monitoring, outreach and education, enforcement and compliance, and policy and permitting. CDFW works with many partners to implement this program, including the Ocean Protection Council, state and federal agencies, tribes, the MPA Collaborative Network, an array of academic researchers and many others.

The MPA Network is adaptively managed, and the program is set to be reviewed and evaluated by the Fish and Game Commission every 10 years. We’re approaching our first decadal management review in 2022, so we’re currently getting ready to compile information from each of the program’s four focal areas and assess what we’ve learned. Although we have some regional reports from baseline studies that were conducted in the past, next year will be the first time we get reports back from statewide long-term monitoring projects. Early results from baseline studies include some positive trends, such as greater numbers of black rockfish, lingcod and cabezon in kelp forests located in MPAs compared to similar locations outside MPAs along the central coast. It will be exciting to compare the new data with the baseline data and provide an update on how our MPAs have been doing. It will be a very big milestone for our project, CDFW and the State of California.

What is a typical work day like for you?

My work is incredibly varied. I coordinate with many different partners on all sorts of MPA management issues and support their work. I receive research updates and proposals that require review and feedback. I do outreach, such as writing and reviewing two blog series that are published on the CDFW Marine Management website. I am also working on utilizing the California Recreational Fisheries Survey data to help get a sense of how MPAs have affected fishing and how historical fishing levels affect MPA efficacy.

Since the pandemic, I have been working from home. People might assume that I do a lot of field work, but MPA monitoring is contracted to outside researchers and not conducted within the department. With our handful of staff, we don’t have the capacity to deploy multiple full-blown research programs on a statewide scale. We maintain relationships with the MPA monitoring groups so if they need help in a specific area where we have staff available, we go out and help with those efforts, during a normal year. Instead of specializing in particular species or habitats, our team gets to sample a bit of everything.

What is your favorite part about working with the MPAs?

California is a global leader when it comes to MPAs, because of our ecologically connected network. I like working on something that’s so pioneering, where there is a lot to learn. I also really love the diversity of the topic area, covering many different habitats and species as well as looking into the relationship between people and MPAs. And I find that working with many internal and external partners on MPA management is very rewarding because it creates a feeling of being part of a greater whole.

But working with so many different people must be challenging in its own way…

Yes, I’d have to say the hardest part of my job is managing such a big network with limited capacity and reliance on many partners. It’s challenging to keep up with everything that is going on, so there are always missed opportunities when it comes to meetings, outreach events, collaborations and publications. It is a big arena, and while we know we can’t do everything, we also don’t want to get lost as the managing agency for the network.

What are the challenges facing the MPA network?

One existential issue is the fact that we’re really invested in these MPAs but they can’t solve everything. Climate change and its associated problems, like marine diseases and invasive species, are threatening marine ecosystems everywhere and MPAs do not create an invisible forcefield against these stressors. While we realize there are limitations to what MPAs can do, we have gathered a working group of scientists that has been researching how MPAs may contribute to climate resilience, what we still don’t know, and how to get closer to some answers. A report of their findings and recommendations will be available next year.

Another challenge is getting the word out to the public about MPAs. Unlike with state parks where there are clear boundaries on land, MPAs don’t have a marked boundary around them to distinguish them from the surrounding waters. It’s hard to gain an appreciation for, or even recognize, something you can’t see. More communication about MPAs and the science behind them is essential to the success of the MPA Network.

Speaking of public awareness and involvement, how can the program attract more people from diverse backgrounds and how do you feel about diversity within the program overall?

As an Asian American, I feel that diversity is lacking within our field. However, the field is becoming more aware of this lack of diversity, especially with the current social justice movement.

I think many people in the field were introduced to nature and the outdoors by their family, but my family and friends growing up were pretty “indoorsy”, and I think that is fairly typical of many non-white and immigrant communities. I approached my career path from more of an academic angle and my appreciation for nature grew from there. Outdoor education for kids, especially for underrepresented groups, may help inspire a more diverse generation of environmental stewards.

We have to ask: What is your favorite intertidal species?

I always get really excited when I find an octopus, which doesn’t happen very often, so it’s a special treat. They’re so mysterious and smart. They can change color and texture to blend in with their surroundings or to communicate, and they’re crazy escapists. The intertidal often looks uninteresting at the surface, but the more you learn about it, the more you discover it is full of clues, hiding spots, competing forces and change.

CDFW photos

Brian Olson holds up a Trinity Lake smallmouth bass. Brian grew up in Weaverville, Trinity County.


Brian, his wife, Ami, and their daughter, Juniper. Ami Olson also works for CDFW as the coordinator of the Regional Conservation Investment Strategies Program (RCIS), which encourages regional conservation planning in restoring, enhancing and reconnecting wildlife habitat.


CDFW’s Comprehensive Wetland Habitat Program team assess habitat at Little Dry Creek, part of CDFW’s Upper Butte Basin Wildlife Area. From left, Environmental Scientist Kelsey Navarre, Environmental Scientist Jeff Kohl, and Brian Olson. Not pictured is retired annuitant Bill Cook, the former manager of the Los Banos Wildlife Area.


Brian Olson shows off the results of a successful turkey hunt.

CDFW Photos

Brian Olson is the CDFW’s Comprehensive Wetland Habitat Program coordinator. He leads a four-person team tasked with preserving, restoring and enhancing California’s wetlands – on both public and private land – for the benefit of wildlife. Born in Redding and raised in Weaverville, Brian holds a bachelor’s degree in wildlife, fisheries and conservation biology from UC Davis and a master’s degree in avian sciences, also from UC Davis. He joined CDFW in his current role in 2015. He is based in West Sacramento.

Why do we need to manage wetlands in the first place?

We have a lot fewer than what we’ve had in the past and still have a lot of wildlife that depend upon them. Over the past 150 years, we’ve lost about 95 percent of our wetlands in the Central Valley. Thus the relatively few remaining wetlands that we have are important, and we need to manage them in a way that maximizes their value for waterfowl and other wetland-dependent species.

How do you go about improving wetlands for CDFW?

Our primary role – and the reason for the creation of our program – is to serve as a mechanism for CDFW to accomplish the wetland protection, restoration, enhancement and management objectives of the Central Valley Joint Venture, which is a coalition of state, federal and private entities that helps guide conservation actions for this region. Our program is designed to work with both private and public wetland managers. After this fall, we’ll have about 85,000 acres of private lands under management agreements where we compensate landowners in one form or another to manage their lands in accordance with plans we put together with them. And then we also work with another 150,000 acres of public lands. That includes all of our major wetland wildlife areas throughout the state. I look at us as being consultants of sorts, helping wetland managers with management plans and annual work plans, helping them with wetland projects, and helping them with funding and just wetland and upland management issues in general. 

Our ability to help folks manage wetlands relies heavily on a network of partnerships that have been developed over decades, many of which pre-date my time here at the department. Whether that’s CDFW wildlife area managers, private landowners, other government agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, nonprofits like Ducks Unlimited and California Waterfowl and others like the California Rice Commission, Audubon, UC Davis, resource conservation districts and mosquito and vector control districts. We couldn’t do any of the things we do without the help of our many partners.

Why would a private property owner want to partner with CDFW on wetland management?

First, they are getting a free wetland consultant for their property. Better yet, they are getting a wetland consultant that pays them to do things on their property that enhances its value for wildlife. Our California Waterfowl Habitat Program (aka the Presley Program) and the California Winter Rice Habitat Incentive Program both offer landowners an annual incentive payment to manage their land in accordance with cooperatively developed management plans.

How much money are we talking about here?

The amount we pay landowners depends on the type of habitat they provide. On a per-acre basis it ranges between $15 and $60 per acre. We had $10 million available for our last round of funding for the Presley Program. That money came from Proposition 68, a voter-approved bond measure.

What are some of the biggest challenges you are facing these days?

For our public areas, it is largely funding and capacity for ongoing management. We’ve got a lot of land to manage with limited resources. For private land, it’s also largely funding. We had about double the properties apply for this last Presley solicitation than what we had funding for, so there is a significant opportunity to expand. Recruitment of wetland managers is also challenging. There doesn’t seem to be as many folks interested in doing this type of work – or at least their applications aren’t making their way to us when positions become available.

Waterfowl season is well underway. What can hunters expect, habitat-wise, when they head out to hunt the different public areas?

In the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, things are looking pretty good. Initially, it wasn’t looking like we were going to have the water we needed to manage wetlands optimally in these basins, but it ended up being OK, with reservoir inflow being just barely high enough in the spring for us to receive an adequate water supply. Due to this, both our seasonal and semi-permanent wetlands in these areas look pretty good this year. The public wetlands up in northeastern California don’t have the water storage that we have to work with in the Central Valley and are much more reliant on natural hydrology. These areas didn’t get as much water as we would have liked and are not looking as good this year.

Regardless of location, it was a tough year to do wetland management. As someone who hunts the wildlife areas myself, I want to mention how much I appreciate all the additional effort staff from our wildlife areas and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put in this year to make sure we could access these wildlife areas and the national wildlife refuges. They put in safeguards and physical distancing measures, and came up with a COVID-19 plan that complied with state guidance so that public areas would remain open and folks could come out and enjoy the resource and these beautiful places.

California’s population of wild mallards has declined. Is there anything you can do from a wetland management perspective to help mallards specifically?

The focus of wetland management in California tends to be on seasonal wetlands in the fall and winter – and for good reason. We’ve got the highest concentration of wintering waterfowl anywhere in the world. But for certain species such as mallards, gadwall and cinnamon teal, we’ve got to be thinking about life cycle needs outside of wintering habitat. Close to 70 percent of the harvested mallards in this state are born and raised in California, so if we want more mallards, then we need to focus on growing them in California. One of the things that we can do to help is to provide semi-permanent or reverse-cycle wetlands where water is out there at a different time than these seasonal wetlands. It’s important to have that water out on the landscape from late March, early April through July. Getting this habitat on the ground has become more of a priority for the Central Valley Joint Venture and, as a result, it was a big part of this last Presley solicitation. Private properties that were willing to provide it received extra points in the scoring process, and we offered a higher incentive payment to private landowners to provide that type of habitat. 

And why is wetland habitat from March through July so important?

For ducks, it’s primarily for duckling survival. Statewide, we are pretty limited on brood-rearing habitat. It’s particularly important, especially early on in the brood-rearing period for waterfowl, to have productive wetlands out there. It’s critical for brood survival and super-critical for other wetland-dependent species like tricolored blackbirds. I’d argue the biggest benefit of having this type of wetland on the landscape is for other wetland-dependent species. These spring and summer flooded wetlands are some of the most species-diverse wetlands we have and are absolutely critical to many threatened species like giant garter snakes and tricolored blackbirds.

What first brought you to CDFW and what keeps you here?

I love managing habitat. It’s what I think about all the time, regardless of whether I’m working or not. Prior to CDFW, I was managing a fairly large private duck club with a few thousand acres of property in the Sacramento Valley. It was awesome, but I didn’t have the connection to our public lands that I wanted. I think what brought me to the department was my daughter being born. She’s 5 now and I wanted to preserve as much of this resource and opportunity for her as I could.

Hunting license sales are up in California this season and we have a lot of new hunters out there who might want to give duck hunting a try. What is it you love about duck hunting that you could share with them?

I started duck hunting when I was 7, but what really got me got me addicted to ducks and duck hunting was my first trip to the Sacramento Valley. When you get several million birds in one place, it’s a pretty awesome spectacle. It’s not really a describable feeling; you have to get out there and experience it. Even if folks don’t want to hunt but just want to go sit in the marsh, it’s pretty special. 

Away from work, where are we likely to find you?

In a normal year, probably hiking, hunting, or fishing with friends and family. The specific activity really depends on the time of year. If it’s spring, I’m probably turkey hunting or fishing. If it’s summer, I’m probably fishing, camping, or backpacking. In fall, I’m usually deer or elk hunting, and in winter, I’m likely duck hunting, though I don’t hunt nearly as much as I used to. One of the great things about living in California is that there are a ton of outdoor activities to do year-round.

Amelia Viera, at the scene of a mountain lion (not pictured) spotted in a tree in Los Angeles County.


Assisting in attaching a collar to mountain lion in the Santa Monica Mountains. Click to enlarge.


On aerial deer survey in San Diego County, Fall of 2019. Click to enlarge.


Putting up a trail camera for sheep survey near State Route 39. Click to enlarge.


Loading immobilized bear into truck for move to animal care facility. Click to enlarge.

It made perfect sense that CDFW environmental scientist Amelia Viera wanted to be a biology teacher. That was the high school topic she fell in love with, and she credited her teacher for making the subject so interesting. But it wasn’t long after getting her feet wet as a substitute teacher that she arrived at a slightly different career decision. She realized she wanted to practice biology, not just teach it.

Her degree in Anthropology was earned at UC Davis, but Amelia wanted to be closer to her family in Ontario. She returned to Southern California where she landed her first job with CDFW as a scientific aid. Now she’s a wildlife biologist, most often handling calls about bears and mountain lions straying a little too close to humans.

What’s a typical day for a biologist in Southern California? You must be on the road constantly.

There is no typical day since every day is different. I’m working in Los Angeles County so yes, a lot of that time is being stuck in traffic. I often go to foothill communities because they tend to experience the most human wildlife interaction. We get bears stuck on somebody’s property or a mountain lion that’s stuck in a tree on a property. I respond to those incidents with a wildlife officer just to be on the safe side, and we sometimes have to manage public involvement with a situation like that, because people are very curious about what’s going on.

What’s the biologist’s role in those situations?

I’m usually the one that does the immobilization. I’ll take the lead in making any necessary additional contacts if the animal is injured – for example, calling a CDFW veterinarian at the Wildlife Investigations Lab for a consult, or sometimes finding a local veterinarian. Once the animal is sedated, we do a quick assessment, take any vitals and make sure the animal is in generally good health. And then I decide where we release the animal, based on habitat assessment.

There are a lot of things to consider. For example, you don’t want to put that animal in another animal’s territory. We try to keep them as close to their capture location as possible. We want to release them where there’s shelter, food and water so the animal can thrive. Of course we avoid releasing in an area where there’s a lot of human traffic, or near a road because we don’t want them to cross a road and possibly get hit.

You played a major role in the recent release of a mountain lion following its treatment for serious burns. Can you describe your involvement in that situation?

We heard there was a mountain lion on someone’s property on the outskirts of Monrovia. We suspected that it might have burned paws, but you never really know until you get there and assess the situation. She was probably 50 to 100 yards down a hillside, and the vegetation was pretty thick. We could see her with binoculars and we could see she was licking her paws. We had an idea something wasn’t right, based on the homeowner’s description of what he came across the night before and obviously, her proximity to the Bobcat Fire as well.

My first thought was the injuries weren’t great, but they weren’t terrible – we had the possibility of saving this lion and letting her heal. Once she was shot with a tranquilizer dart, it took about five minutes for the drugs to kick in. She actually walked away from the area and toward the state vehicles, which was perfect. She was right where we needed her. We kept her quiet overnight at a local veterinary facility, and the following morning she was transported to the Wildlife Investigations Lab (near Sacramento) for treatment. Watch Amelia talk about the lion release (Video).

The lion was released in October, after her injuries healed. We saw in the video that your job was to stand on the top of the transport cage to lift the door. What was going through your mind?

I wouldn’t say I fear the animals because I work with them often, but I definitely do respect them as predators. I know what their potential is, so I can’t let my guard down when we’re handling them. We had this lion in front of a trail and I was hoping she’d go down the trail and not look back at me and get mad for me standing up there. I had the metal door with me, and also had a team behind me, backing me up, so I felt safe. I also felt excited because I wanted to see her walk away – that was the ultimate goal from the beginning when we captured her.

How did you determine the right spot for the release? What goes into that decision?

It takes a couple of days and a lot of thought. The process starts with going over a map. I have good knowledge of the Angeles National Forest, so I was trying to think of areas with suitable habitat. Are there deer there, and do we know where water is? Also, is this an area where there won’t be human presence or highways? My first site ended up having no water, so I needed a Plan B. It’s important that the animals go back into their home range. But with her, the whole area surrounding the capture site had just burned, so we had to go outside that perimeter and honestly just hope for the best.

Do the job assignments and wildlife scenarios change from one part of the state to another?

I don't think the job assignments necessarily change, but we do have to consider how our decisions and assignments will impact or be affected by the large amounts of people that utilize the environment in which we work. Additionally, there is a higher frequency of human-wildlife conflict in Southern California because of the large wildland-urban interface. I would also say our wildlife scenarios get a lot of attention from mainstream media and social media. We often encounter crowds of people, media cameras and media helicopters at our wildlife incidents. And with this job, I still get that teaching aspect that I originally wanted. We get to educate the public on wildlife when we do public outreach, at city town halls and other meetings.

What do you like most about your job?

The main reason I pursued this is because I get to go into the mountains, go hiking into nature and pretend this is my office. Obviously, I love working the animals and wildlife. It’s not like a connection to a pet, because you see pets as your family. I appreciate and admire these animals and want to maintain these local populations because they’re part of our environment and our habitat. And I love that every day is different. It’s an adventure.

Do you have a favorite memory?

The recent mountain lion release was definitely a highlight. We also do aerial surveys every year, when we go in a helicopter and count animals from above, and see the mountains from a birds-eye view. Those days are some of my favorites even though I get motion sickness. I still enjoy being up in the helicopter.

What would you like to be doing 20 years from now? 

I would like to still be working with CDFW! I'm only two years into this position, so I'm hoping to feel more like an expert 20 years from now when I have all that experience under my belt.

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CDFW Photos

Valerie Taylor, CDFW Marine Biologist


Assisting Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute in release of halibut. Click to enlarge


Scanning White Seabass, caught by commercial fisherman. Click to enlarge


Scanning White Seabass, at fish market in San Pedro. Click to enlarge

Valerie Taylor knew in grade school that she wanted to be a marine biologist. There was just one potential hurdle – she was living in Kingman, Arizona, about halfway between Phoenix and Las Vegas. So it wasn’t a surprise to anyone who knew Valerie that her college education would take her to California, where she earned a Bachelor of Science at California State University Long Beach.

A couple dozen years later, Valerie is now the Ocean Resources Enhancement and Hatchery Program (OREHP) Coordinator for CDFW’s Marine Region. That’s a long-winded way of saying she oversees the program that produces and releases white seabass into the Pacific Ocean. OREHP is an experimental hatchery program investigating the feasibility of using cultured (farmed) marine fish to successfully enhance wild populations. It is the only program of its kind on the west coast of North America.

How did an Arizona kid become interested in marine biology?

I grew up loving animals, so I really wanted to work in some form of science. I was very interested in the environment and gravitated toward marine biology. We had a career day at the end of fifth grade and I wore a bathing suit, because, you know, all marine biologists wear bathing suits to work (ha!).

People might be surprised to learn that CDFW has a hatchery program associated with the sea (as opposed to rivers and other inland waterways). How unusual is that?

It’s very unusual because this program works with marine fish. It’s not salmon or trout. We’re specifically looking to learn how we can enhance fisheries or wild populations through stocking.

Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute (HSWRI) owns the hatchery in Carlsbad, and we contract with them to raise the white seabass. When the program started in 1983, there were two species of interest that were facing a decline and were therefore specifically of interest to recreational fishermen. Those were California halibut and white seabass. Initially, OREHP staff were doing stocking research on both, but in 1990 it was determined the program didn’t have enough funding to work with two species. We decided to concentrate on white seabass going forward, because the numbers of California halibut were starting to increase, while the white seabass were continuing to decline.

Where do the white seabass eggs come from, and how do we go about releasing them once they reach a certain age?

HSWRI collects wild white seabass off the coast of Southern California for broodstock. The fish are divided into tanks based on whether they’re male or female, and they spawn year-round. The eggs are collected and within the hatchery environment the fish are raised to around 4 to 6 inches. When they reach that size, they’re tagged with an internal coded wire tag (CWT) and are checked for diseases by Department pathologists.

Throughout Southern California we have volunteer grow-out facilities, which are pens in harbors run by fishing groups or nonprofits. The fish are either trucked or taken by boat to one of those pens, where they’re raised for an additional 4 to 6 months. The pens allow them to grow to a larger size before release, giving them a better chance at survival. Once they’re around 10 to 12 inches in length, they’re released from the pens.

Are the fish eventually caught and studied to see how well they’re doing?

Yes, there are two sampling programs used to assess the proportion of hatchery-raised fish to the wild population. The juvenile sampling program has been conducted, off-and-on, since 1988. Gill nets are deployed in nearshore coastal and embayment areas off Southern California from Palos Verdes south to Imperial Beach off San Diego to recover white seabass that have been released by the OREHP. Data on these captured fish and how many have CWTs are used to estimate survivorship and to determine how release habitat, region, and seasonality affect their survivorship. In addition, this sampling is used to determine the spatial and size distributions, seasonality, and abundance of wild young white seabass in shallow (5-10 meter) nearshore waters.

There’s also an adult sampling program that has been ongoing since 1998. CDFW staff, along with HSWRI, opportunistically scan white seabass caught by both the commercial and recreational fisheries for a CWT. The OREHP has freezers at various organizations and sportfish landings within Southern California where sport fishermen can drop off their seabass heads. The heads are then collected and scanned for CWTs by HSWRI. CDFW also employs staff who scan white seabass as the fish are being offloaded by commercial and recreational fishermen in Southern California.

Is the goal of the program simply to increase the population?

When the OREHP began in 1983, the intent of the program was to investigate the economic and ecological feasibility of spawning, rearing, and releasing important marine fish of Southern California. Since then, the intent of the program has been modified slightly, with the ultimate goal now being to increase (enhance) marine fish populations that are important to California commercial and sport fishing.

In this process, do we learn the causes of fish populations thriving or declining? Are there conclusions on what has happened to white seabass?

The OREHP has certainly contributed significantly to our knowledge on white seabass life history, which in turn has improved management decisions for this species, but the program’s research is not focused on learning the causes of why fish populations thrive or decline. The decline of the white seabass population was most likely attributed to human activities (pollution, overfishing and habitat destruction) and natural environmental conditions. The increase we’ve seen in the population is thought to be a combination of both environmental and fishery management actions.

OREHP has been described as an “experimental” program. What makes it experimental?

The program is experimental in that it is constantly improving and discovering new science and marine enhancement techniques. For example, we used to release juvenile white seabass year-round, either from the hatchery or at a grow-out facility. But a 2008 study concluded there is a higher survival rate when the release happens during the spring, summer, or fall. We’ve adjusted the releases based on that study.

In August 2014, the two millionth white seabass was released. That sounds impressive!

The August 2014 milestone was important, but since then, our number has grown to more than 2.5 million released!

Also, back in 2015, our oldest tagged fish was recovered off Ventura. That was a 15-year-old female. These fish can live beyond 30 years and the oldest white seabass caught was 28 years old. We don’t know how often that fish would have spawned, but it has been reported that white seabass spawn more than once per season.

How did that make you feel?

It was a nice feeling to know the fish were surviving – we had the proof. It made everybody feel good about the program, and it felt like we were making a difference.

What’s been the most rewarding thing about being assigned to this hatchery program?

The most rewarding part of this program is all the different groups and people that I get to work with on a daily basis. As coordinator, I’ve had the pleasure of working side-by-side with nonprofits, commercial fishermen and businesses, recreational fishing groups, various researchers, and a variety of K-12 schools within Southern California. All the different ideas and personalities have certainly made my job challenging at times, but it’s been worth it to see everyone focused on the importance of maintaining healthy and sustainable wild fish populations.

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CDFW Photos