Featured Scientist

Benjamin Francis Lewis (AKA “Big Ben”), who works out of Fresno, has been the CDFW Central Region’s Upland Game Bird Coordinator position since 2008. Over the past decade, Lewis has had the opportunity to work with several game and non-game species in a wide variety of projects, but his primary focus during his career with CDFW has been upland game birds. He has had the opportunity to work on projects such as banding doves, conducting quail brood counts, planting pheasants, capturing turkeys and staffing upland game check stations. Ben says that every day, he observes and learns something new about upland bird species.

Ben earned his Bachelor of Science degree in biology, with an emphasis in ecology and anatomy/physiology and a minor in chemistry, from California State University, Fresno.

Who or what inspired you to become a wildlife biologist?

As a child, I was the curious sort, always trying to take something apart or figure out how something worked. I also fell in love with the outdoors at a very young age. My mother often reminded me that my first word was “outside” and that I would stand by a door and say it repeatedly until I was let out.

One of my earliest memories is of a small spider, no bigger than a pea, perched atop a piece of canvas. It was a very nice day out, cool with a slight breeze, and for some reason this spider caught my eye. The way it moved with the breeze, rocking and ebbing in perfect sync, mesmerized me. I was trying to understand what it was doing; I thought perhaps it was injured and was moving with the wind due to an inability to resist it? Then in a flash, the spider sprang forth with amazing speed and accuracy and in an instant I realized what it was doing. In its grasp was a fly, one of many that were stationed upon the canvas as well. In that moment in my mind was the feeling of profound understanding, and from that day forward I was hooked.

The desire to understand the world around me is what ultimately led me to the sciences. Of course, some amazing teachers also helped point me in the right direction along the way. A special thank you to Ms. Lawrence, Mr. Slothower, Mr. Scott, Mr. Rouse, Ms. Niboli, Ms. Charnels, Dr. Blumenshine and, of course, my mother, Catherine Lewis.

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

I may be one of the luckiest people on the planet. After graduation I had still not secured a job in the wildlife field, and believe you me it was not for a lack of trying. Up until that point, the only jobs I had were manual labor positions I took to pay for school. My first real opportunity came in the form of an interview with Fresno Wildlife Management Supervisor Kevin O’Connor. At the end of the interview he offered me the scientific aid position and asked me when I could start. I was soon introduced to the rest of the team, and I had never met a more positive and supportive group of people. Soon the group felt less like coworkers and more like family. I enjoyed the work so much that when my seasonal hours were up, I came back as a volunteer until I was hired on again as a seasonal employee and, eventually, as an environmental scientist (wildlife biologist).

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

This is a tough one because I draw a great deal of satisfaction from many of the projects that I have had the opportunity to work on over the years, from running special hunts that get our next generation into the field, to working on habitat improvement projects.

If I have to pick one project, I would have to say it is providing hunting opportunities to the public through habitat work and putting on special upland game bird hunts. Getting people outside into the field creates a connection with wildlife and a vested interest in conservation and proper management. Working with the public and seeing those connections form has been the most rewarding part of the job.

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

It would have to involve two of my favorite things: California quail and gallinaceous guzzlers (artificial water sources for wildlife). Starting in the 1950s, gallinaceous guzzlers were built in arid regions of California to provide water for upland game birds. Many of these original guzzlers have withstood the test of time and still serve wildlife today. They are comprised of four main parts: an apron, a water tank, an exclusion fence and brush piles. The apron is a flat surface that is sloped to collect rainwater and drain into the guzzler tank. The water storage tank serves as both a water storage vessel and an access point for wildlife. The exclusion fence keeps cattle from accessing the guzzler area and causing damage, and brush piles create habitat and are essential for providing cover from predators while they are drinking from the guzzler. These oases of life provide stable water sources in a harsh environment and are important to game and non-game species alike, particularly during periods of prolonged drought.

Specific to the California quail, I would love to look at home range, fecundity (the ability to produce an abundance of offspring) survivorship and find a way quantify the importance of the guzzlers in relationship to productivity. To be honest, there is a lot of work I would like to do with upland game birds that range from food studies to reintroductions. However, you know what they say: “Be not afraid of moving slowly, and instead be afraid of standing still.”

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

That would have to be the paperwork -- well, OK, paperwork is a close second. The major challenge is working with the public on human-wildlife conflict. In most cases, the solution to these problems can be summed up with one simple phase: “Leave it alone.” Here in CDFW’s Central Region, we have created a kind of mascot called “Leave It Alone Larry the Lion.” We often talk about creating a public service announcement where kids are walking through the park and find a fledgling of some kind on the ground next to a tree. One child asks the other, “What should we do?” And then Leave it Alone Larry would pop in and say, “Leave it alone!”

More often than not, the best thing we can do when we come across wildlife is to not engage or interact at all.

What is the best thing about being a wildlife scientist?

The fact that it constantly reminds me that life is an adventure -- and an unpredictable one at that. The work can be challenging and many things do not necessarily make sense, but that is what I love about it. If we did not have questions to answer, we would not be able to call ourselves scientists.

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

We are not all huge nerds with glasses and lab coats … though I am a huge nerd, and I have glasses and more than one lab coat in my closet. What I mean to say is that there is no set mold for a scientist. We are a diverse and unique bunch with a common interest in finding answers to questions that baffle us. Oftentimes, we find new questions in the process.

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

The work I do, I do for you and the resource. We share common goals, no matter who we are or where we come from.

Cynthia Catton is an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Marine Region. Based in the Bodega Bay field office at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, her main responsibilities are in Marine Invertebrate Fisheries and Conservation Research. She works primarily in kelp forest ecosystems throughout the state, with a particular focus on abalone populations. She conducts research to inform the management of the recreational red abalone fishery in northern California and the restoration of endangered species in southern California. She also contributes to research on Dungeness crab, sea urchins and sea cucumbers.

Cynthia earned her Bachelor’s degree in Zoology with a Marine Emphasis at the University of Washington, Seattle. She went on to earn a Master’s degree in Biological Oceanography and a doctorate in Biological Oceanography, both at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego.

In 2012, she joined CDFW as an environmental scientist. Here, she represents the U.S. and Canada for the International Abalone Society, has served on the CDFW climate change working group and developed curriculum for the CDFW marine Climate Change College. Previously, Cynthia conducted marine life research in Washington, Australia and California, including work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Research Council.

What inspired you to become a scientist?

I was one of those unusual people who knew I wanted to go into marine biology at an early age. Originally, I wanted to be an underwater photographer. I learned to dive when I was 16 and joined two Explorer Scout troops, one sponsored by a local dive club and another sponsored by NOAA. In the latter, I met marine biologists and got to ask all about their work.

I was fascinated by marine invertebrates early on, because they’re such odd, beautiful creatures, so I was searching for a way to be involved in the marine environment. In college, I decided to be a science major to support my photography interest, then discovered that I really liked research. So now, my photography supports my scientific research! I think that art and science are very complementary fields, and that using art to explain science can be very powerful.

What is your typical day at work like?

I can’t say I have a “typical” work day; my days are extremely varied and depend on the season. During field season—which used to be summer, but is expanding—I board a boat early in the morning to start a day of SCUBA work, counting and measuring abalone and other species in their environment.

I sometimes spend a lot of time driving to a site far from my lab, even to southern California. I may be outside in rubber boots and foul-weather gear to interview fishers about what they are catching, usually abalone or clams. At other times, I get to look at the data we collected during the field season and identify patterns of changes we’re seeing in populations. We use the data to understand why we’re seeing those changes and what they mean. Then, I can relay that information to the Fish & Game Commission, the public and the scientific community.

What is your favorite species to interact with or study? Why?

I can’t really name a favorite, though I have always really enjoyed marine invertebrates. My first interest was octopus, because they’re just an incredibly unusual species and fascinating to watch move and interact with the world. I’m pretty excited now because we have started a project in southern California where we are studying the interactions between octopus and abalone. We’re collaborating with an octopus biologist to help us with our efforts to restore endangered white abalone populations, because the octopus like to eat the abalone. We are learning about how to minimize octopus predation on the juvenile abalone that we are introducing to the ocean.

What is it about your work that you find the most interesting?

I really enjoy the variety in my work days. I appreciate being able to get out in the field and observe the organisms in their environment, collecting the data myself. That gives you important perspective for the analysis of the data later. It’s important to understand the nuances in the data when you are running the analysis, and it is likewise important for those in the field to keep in mind the requirements of the statistics. My work requires many different skill sets, and keeps me challenged.

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

So much of what I do is really rewarding, but I think the most rewarding part is working as a team to solve problems. For example, I’m part of a very large collaboration on restoring white abalone populations in southern California. White abalone was the first marine invertebrate to be federally listed as endangered, and its population has been declining by 12 percent a year for over a decade. Using data from NOAA surveys of wild populations, I have estimated that we will have fewer than 1,000 white abalone in southern California by 2029. That just leaves us a little over a decade to move on re-establishing self-sustaining populations. It’s a complicated problem, but I get to work with people from lots of different backgrounds to come up with some really creative solutions. The first phase of the work has been developing a strong captive breeding program, focused here at Bodega Marine Lab and at partner aquaria in Southern California. We are now starting the next phase and will work to place these abalone into their natural environment. It’s really rewarding when we can work together and see the project grow successfully.

On the north coast, I am pulling together another team of folks to tackle the problems we are facing with the recent severe loss of bull kelp. We are working to understand the potential for the bull kelp to recover and how we can support that recovery. It is a real challenge to the fisheries and our small coastal communities, and I am pleased to lead this problem-solving effort. It’s really empowering and inspiring when we can get a whole community together—urchin divers, citizen volunteers and scientists — to come to the table and contribute their ideas and time. Our blog article on The Perfect Storm has already attracted more than 50 volunteers.

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

That’s fairly easy: save the kelp forest! It needs a lot of funding and experts to address different aspects of it. The issues we’re seeing with the kelp forest are a combination of really large-scale stressors to the system, hitting the kelp forest from many different angles. These kinds of compounding stressors on a system are what we expect to see more of with climate change. There are many large-scale changes to ecosystems that we are seeing occur around the world. The recent mass mortality of corals in the Great Barrier Reef is one example. The loss of the bull kelp forest in northern California is another huge issue, and I see this as our responsibility to respond to it. I am currently working on forming a broad collaboration of researchers to expand our understanding of the large-scale kelp forest dynamics, reaching up the coast into Alaska. If we can bring people and data together, we can work on fully understanding the problems we are facing and identifying the most effective solutions.

Do you have any advice for people considering careers in science or natural resources?

Follow your passion. Science, and natural resource management in particular, is a challenging career choice. Your passion will help motivate you to overcome those challenges, and it will inspire others to join you in your work.

Marcia Grefsrud is an environmental scientist with CDFW’s Bay Delta Region. She spends much of her time working in the field, reviewing requests for incidental take permits and streambed alteration agreements. Her work helps to ensure that urban development does not destroy the resources upon which wildlife depend. She also serves as an advocate for many vulnerable species in the Bay Area, most notably the California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense), a stocky black and yellow amphibian that inhabits many of the stock ponds and grasslands in Alameda County.

Marcia took an unconventional path to her current position. She has attended a number of colleges and universities from as far north as Bemidji, Minnesota to as far south and east as Puerto Rico and as far west as Cal State East Bay in Hayward. A former petty officer in the US Navy, she also served as a CDFW wildlife officer before becoming a scientist.

Outside of work, Marcia is also skilled photographer with an extensive portfolio of wildlife images. She is particularly good at “macro-photography” – capturing small details of a dragonfly’s wing or a bushtit’s feathered breast. Her images are often featured on CDFW’s social media pages and in publications.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

I grew up during the time of “Wild Kingdom,” “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” and “Jaws,” and I became fascinated with marine biology, especially sharks. My passion at the time was to be a marine biologist, but there obviously weren’t any colleges in Minnesota offering that field of study and I didn’t have the money to move out of state. Eventually, I couldn’t afford to stay in college, so I opted for something else – the Navy. That decision sent me on an entirely different career track of advanced electronics and cryptology.

How did you come to work for CDFW?

I moved to California after accepting a job as a Navy Tech Rep/Project Manager at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo. That job required extensive overseas and stateside travel and long work hours often in remote military bases such as Iceland and Adak, Alaska. The base closures left two options – I could relocate to San Diego or find another job. I opted to leave the federal government and return to school with the goal of studying raptor biology. But life had other plans, so after graduating from CDFW’s Resource Academy, I worked as a fish and game warden for three years. I made the jump to the scientific side 17 years ago.

Your job involves working with developers and builders to issue permits in the East Bay. Why is that important?

I cover all of Alameda County, which includes the highly urbanized area along the easternmost portion of San Francisco Bay and the more rural, eastern portion that supports ranching, with an urban/suburban center located in the Tri-Valley region. The county is approximately 50 percent agricultural land and 50 percent urban lands. Then there is the Altamont area of Alameda County, which is known for the wind turbines populating the hillsides. Combined, each of these areas make Alameda County one of the busiest counties in the region for Habitat Conservation. For example, from 2010-2015, approximately 668 acres of habitat in Alameda County was permanently lost as a result of residential development alone. But approximately 2,066 acres of habitat has been permanently conserved as a result of incidental take permits issued for those residential developments.

What is a typical day like for you at work?

When I’m in the office, I spend the day answering emails and telephone calls. I split my time between writing permits and agreements, reviewing conservation lands packages and monitoring reports. On the fortunate days when I’m in the field, I could be doing compliance checks, visiting project sites or attending meetings. If I’m really fortunate, I could be doing stream or pond surveys.

What is your favorite species to interact with or study?

Hands down, the California tiger salamander. They are my favorite probably because there is so much more to learn about them and I love the challenge. There have been many studies but there are still gaps in our knowledge that may never be filled. Plus, they are so darn cute!

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

The California Endangered Species Act (CESA) was intended to help protect wildlife and their habitats, but it can also create unintended hurdles. For instance, in Alameda County, privately owned stock ponds – which are prime breeding grounds for the California tiger salamander – have a finite lifespan, and may require maintenance and upkeep in order to function properly. When California tiger salamanders became a candidate species for state listing in 2009, new permitting and mitigation requirements went into effect. Because any land improvements or changes within CTS habitat were now subject to strict oversight, I became concerned that some ranchers would let their stock ponds go unmaintained rather than attempt to go through the permitting process.

After doing a lot of digging, I found a little-used section of the Fish and Game Code regarding Voluntary Local Programs (VLPs). These are similar to the state and federal Safe Harbor Agreement program, except the VLP is specifically for routine and ongoing agricultural activities on farms and ranches that encourage habitat for state listed or candidate species. A VLP must include management practices that will avoid and minimize harm while encouraging the enhancement of habitat. Landowners or ranchers that sign up with the local VLP agree to voluntarily carry out specific habitat improvements and to abide by avoidance and minimization measures. These measures are developed and agreed upon by CDFW, the program administrator (in this case, the Alameda County Resource Conservation District), the California Department of Food and Agriculture and other agricultural experts.

Ranchers can then perform routine and ongoing agricultural activities and necessary maintenance to stock ponds, roads, streams and other agreed-upon practices without risk of violating CESA. Even though we had to “give a little,” the Alameda County VLP has helped CDFW build trusting relationships with the Resource Conservation District and the local ranching community, and has ultimately allowed more potential breeding ponds to be repaired in a timely manner.

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

The enormous amount of work and the limitations of our job duties.

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

At the moment I want to do a study on teeth patterns of California tiger salamanders compared to hybrids and non-natives. One study I looked at found that considerable variation in tooth morphology may be found between species of the same genus. There is a possibility that the teeth patterns between the native salamanders, non-natives and hybrids are different. If so, it may provide another indicator to determine whether or not a specific animal is pure CTS or hybrid.

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

Some people think Habitat Conservation work is boring and/or not important because it doesn’t sound as exciting as chasing poachers or studying wildlife. Sometimes the work is tedious, but what we do is extremely important because without it we would face more species’ extinction and destruction of terrestrial and aquatic habitat.

How does your interest in photography intersect with your work as a scientist?

I have had a lifelong interest in photography and art, but only recently started to explore photography as art. In addition to photographing wildlife (which has its challenges), I am drawn to the old, obscure, dilapidated and overlooked parts of our environment -- from the tiny mushroom to the broken-down piano dumped on the side of the road. One of the joys I find with photography is being able to show beauty in things that often go unnoticed.

One of the cool things about photography for me is it allows me to visually study some of these animals without physically capturing them. It is amazing what you learn when you are looking at a macro, like the wing structure of a dragonfly or embryos of foothill yellow-legged frogs. I’ve also been able to capture some remarkable photos of birds in action. I have a series of photos of an osprey repeatedly dive bombing a bald eagle. Then another series with a red-tailed hawk attacking a bald eagle that was trying to steal a fish from an osprey. One photo that will hopefully be published in a short note soon is of a peregrine falcon that predated a federally and state protected Ridgway’s rail. The photos are not National Geographic worthy, but they do tell stories!

Do you have any advice for people considering careers in science or natural resources?

With so much information available on the Internet now, I would start by exploring government and non-profit websites to find volunteer opportunities. The more field experience they can get the better off they will be both in finding a job and really beginning to find their passion. Finally, I would recommend when they do find something they are passionate about then stay focused and go for it!