Featured Scientist

Hailey Marie Harrell is an Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) environmental scientist working as part of the Northern Field Response Team. She graduated from the University of California, Davis, in 2013, with a double major in Plant Biology and English.

Hailey was initially hired as a scientific aid for CDFW’s Habitat Conservation Planning Branch’s Native Plant Program. There, she had the opportunity to do field work with skilled botanists on some of California’s most sensitive plants, conduct census surveys and issue California Endangered Species Act scientific collection permits. She promoted to a permanent role with OSPR in 2016, and has been immersed in the world of oil spill prevention and response ever since.

A relative newcomer to CDFW in terms of job tenure, Hailey has a very fresh perspective on working as an OSPR environmental scientist.

Who or what inspired your love of natural resources?

I’ve spent countless hours in the woods and along waters of this state and I have observed many wonderful and fascinating things within them. I was raised by avid hunters and fishermen who instilled in me an admiration of our truly beautiful natural resources. They hammered home the importance of conservation and taught me to take care to leave places as good as, if not better, than I found them.

How did you come to work for CDFW?

I chose to study plants instead of animals when I got to college because they were a form of life I knew very little about. I was encouraged by a few professors who liked my writing style to take English courses while in college because it is rare to find someone who loves science and also enjoys writing. They saw me as a bridge between technical information and the layperson.

After college, I took a job as a technical writer for a privately contracted aerospace and defense company. After several months, I had learned all the ins and outs of the position and no longer felt challenged. I spent every minute of every 40-hour workweek sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen. In the small bits of time I could manage, I took every opportunity to network with people that were already working in various natural resource agencies. Through these interactions, I got to know some great employees of CDFW who gave me advice and let me do some volunteer work to gain experience for my resume. I eventually landed a scientific aid position with CDFW’s Native Plant Program where I learned my way around the intricacies of state service as I assisted in surveying some of California’s amazing threatened and endangered plant species and issued permits for their protection.

Why did you change your focus from native plants to oil spill response?

I didn’t know if I could love a job as much as the one I had with the Native Plant Program, but knew I couldn’t stay a scientific aid forever so I applied for environmental scientist positions. The OSPR position I have now was the only one of many applications I submitted that gave me a call back. I went into my interview knowing nothing about OSPR except what I had scrambled to learn about it before the interview. I was ecstatic, but at the time had no idea how truly lucky I would be to be offered this position.

Was there a tough learning curve?

The learning curve when joining OSPR was very steep, initially. I think the most challenging aspect was figuring out all the acronyms that are used. In working with the Native Plant Program I scrambled to learn the intricacies of working for a government agency, but the language itself was straightforward because I was exposed to plant terminology throughout college. OSPR was a whole different ball game. For example, it took some time just for me to realize that they were saying “T and E” species (referring to threatened and endangered wildlife) instead of “teeny” species. I would hear the question, “Were any teeny species impacted by the spill?” and would quietly wonder why they were only concerned with little organisms.

In your new position at OSPR, what are your typical duties?

As a first responder to petroleum spills, I work with a wide variety of our state’s natural resources and travel to many beautiful places across California. I get to work closely with our game wardens, the U.S. Coast Guard, private industry and other local, state and federal government agencies. At some spills, I will be the first person on scene and will have to convey my initial findings to my team to determine what level of response we will need to resolve the issue. Sometimes I will be on my own to resolve the issue, sometimes there will be a small group of us working together and sometimes there will be a large contingency of federal, state and local agencies involved to help resolve the incident. Each incident has a unique set of obstacles that need to be overcome. I fill whatever role is necessary to help get the job done as quickly as possible.

This job is also full of surprises. Few days are the same as a first responder to petroleum spills. One minute you think you’ll be in the office all day and the next minute you’re in the car driving to the coast to walk the shorelines and look for oil, or responding to a sunken vessel, or getting to the scene of a truck crash, etc. Weird reports sometimes come in that challenge your knowledge and your strategies for managing problems. It is hard to get bored, and that is one of the many things I love about it.

What has been the most exciting or enjoyable aspect of working at OSPR for you so far?

I think that the most exciting part of the job has to be emergency response. When you go on call you never really know what kind of spills you are going to get. When you get a report of a spill that warrants a response you generally know where you need to go, but there’s almost always some ambiguity regarding what you are going to find. I love working in a position where there’s so much variety.

The networking, training and interagency collaboration are equally enjoyable aspects of the job. For example, one of my first oil spill drills played out a scenario at an oil refinery in San Pablo Bay. It was a large drill with key representatives from the refinery, government agencies, county hazmat, etc. No more than a month later, there was a response to that very same refinery and almost all of those key players I met at the drill were in the command post during a real event. It felt like déjà vu being there and seeing everyone again. It helped put into perspective just how important it is to practice with drills and meet the key players that will be involved during real spills. It builds trust and understanding between those parties involved and helps to demonstrate that we are all working towards a common goal.

You’re still early in your career. Where do you think you will be, professionally speaking, in five years, or 20 years?

I can really see myself sticking with OSPR for the long hall through to retirement. From discussions with friends and family, this really is a unique and amazing position I am in that is unlike any they have heard of before. I need variety to keep myself content and OSPR certainly has that.

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

Having a job where I could contribute to prolonging our natural resources and get out in the outdoors to enjoy them as much as possible has been a dream I did not know I would achieve, but that was my goal and I fought for it. You may have to scrape by and do things that you don’t want to for a while (maybe even a long while), but if you have enthusiasm, determination and a true love of conserving our natural resources, keep working towards your goals. Talk to people, volunteer your time and keep climbing the ladder. Eventually, if you remain persistent, you will find yourself somewhere you never thought you’d be, with a job that you can’t imagine being without.

Dave Lancaster is an environmental scientist covering Humboldt and Del Norte counties for the Northern Region’s Wildlife Management Program. He has been a unit wildlife biologist for the past 13 years, covering a variety of issues involving birds and mammals including hunting program management, human-wildlife conflict, wildlife disease and welfare, habitat restoration, special-status species protection, population monitoring, research and providing technical assistance to other CDFW programs, agencies and the public.

Dave grew up in eastern Oregon and graduated from Oregon State University, earning Bachelor of Science degrees in both Wildlife Science and Fisheries Science. He has worked as a biologist for more than 20 years, the last 17 of which have been with CDFW.

What led you into a career as a wildlife biologist?

Hunting is a part of life out in rural eastern Oregon, and you start young. This early introduction to game quickly grew into a much wider appreciation for the land and wildlife in general. While there are a number of different jobs that allow a person to satisfy their desire to work out on the land, being a wildlife biologist provides an opportunity to work for the benefit of wildlife and the people who appreciate it.

It is interesting that you have degrees in both Wildlife Science and Fisheries Science. How did that come about?

I wanted to have a career in wildlife management, but most of the work was in fisheries, so I was hedging my bets.

What brought you to CDFW? What inspires you to stay?

Early in one’s career as a biologist, it is often necessary to be flexible and willing to go where job opportunities take you. Like many people in other states, my image of California was crowded freeways and urban sprawl. I never imagined I would make a career here, but when a job came up, I took it, figuring I would not be here long. It was a nice discovery for me that California still has a wealth of wildlife and wildlands, and diverse opportunity to work toward making a material contribution to conservation.

What is a typical day like for you at work?

Unit wildlife biologists have such a wide variety of duties that we typically work on several distinctly different issues in a day, and frequently have our plans changed by new developments occurring in any one of the many tasks we cover. I may on a given morning start to design a study, do a survey or prepare a management plan. Then the phone rings and I am being told a bear broke into a chicken coop, a deer is tangled up in barbed wire or a group of birds has been found dead on the beach – and the day just changed.

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

There are so many rewarding moments in a biologist’s career, it is difficult to pick out one particular thing. There are those projects that are not enjoyable to work on in the moment, but are very rewarding in the end because of the benefit to wildlife they produce. For example, developing habitat improvement projects and mitigation for impacts from development projects involve a lot of time at the desk, in meetings and conferring with folks with differing opinions and goals. Then there are the days when you are out in woods, grasslands or marshes doing surveys or tagging wildlife. You also get personal satisfaction and thanks from the public for helping a particular animal in some form of distress, such as when a deer or an elk is tangled up in barbed wire and you are able to free it up and send it on its way. On other days, you get the opportunity to help a person who is having some type of problem with wildlife. Of course, for wildlife biologists, any day improving the outlook for wildlife constitutes a good day, but if doing so happens to involve watching, handling or tracking animals, then all the better.

What is your favorite species to interact with or study?

The groups of species that I interact with most frequently are game birds and mammals, typically through managing hunting programs, helping landowners who are having conflicts with wildlife and responding to disease outbreaks. I do not have one particular favorite species. It is a diverse and fascinating world out there, with each one having its own appeal.

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

Figuring out how to restore and maintain native grassland habitats while accommodating commercial livestock ranching in the shrub steppe of the Great Basin and in coastal montane prairies would be high on the list in terms of landscape-scale conservation priorities. These areas provide important wildlife habitat but the livestock industry is important as well to these rural communities. Providing for both is the key to success in the big picture.

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

Unit wildlife biologists, as with staff from most of CDFW’s programs, work every day to find practical, effective solutions to complex problems, and try when doing so to satisfy a diverse range of constituents. We have to be practical because the decisions we make and the work we do often directly affects both our constituency and conservation actions carried out on the ground. We have to come up with solutions that actually work, not just in theory; they must work for wildlife, be compatible with landowners’ desired use of their property and be implemented in a cost effective manner. Take hunting as an example: you need to provide for the ecological integrity of the wildlife population being hunted and the habitats and other species that interact with it, and provide for use by the public both in the form of hunting and viewing opportunity, and use hunting as a tool to minimize property damage the hunted species may be causing on private property.

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

Get out in the field and read all the quality scientific literature you have time for. The university and on-the-job training are key components to building knowledge and competency, but a lifelong habit of self-education is indispensable. A broad familiarity with the collective knowledge compiled by those that came before us, tempered with extensive and considered first-hand observations from the field, are what make a good biologist.

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.