Featured Scientist

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

Environmental Scientist Roy Kim in Pacific Grove. Kim responds to oil spills throughout Central California, for CDFW’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR).


Scientist Roy Kim oversees shoreline cleanup efforts in Goleta following an oil spill in June 2019.


Roy Kim took up hunting following his move to the Central Valley in 2015. He also became a hunter-education, where he’s able to help others learn the basics of hunting and firearm safety.


Scientist Roy Kim has been fishing with his father since he could first walk, inspiring a lifelong passion for the outdoors. He now continues to explore the best fishing spots in Central California.

Roy Kim is an environmental scientist for CDFW’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR), for which he responds to petroleum-related incidents throughout Central California. As part of OSPR’s Central Field Response Team, his role is to assess environmental impacts caused by oil spills in collaboration with wildlife officers and prevention specialists who investigate causes and potential violations stemming from such incidents. The nature of his work is highly diverse; on any given day, he might be on the scene of a tanker truck accident, a sunken boat, or every so often, a large marine oil spill like the 2015 Refugio Incident that occurred in Santa Barbara County.

Roy joined OSPR as an environmental scientist in 2015, after spending several years as a scientific aid on CDFW’s Anadromous Assessment Program, where he conducted surveys for Chinook salmon, and the Coastal Pelagic Species Program, where he conducted surveys for marine species including mackerel, sardines and squid. 

Roy is a graduate of California State University, Stanislaus, earning a bachelor of science degree in biology and ecology.

A native of Orange County, his love for nature and the outdoors was inspired by frequent fishing trips with his father.

You grew up close to the ocean. Have you always been a saltwater angler?

I started fishing with my dad at the Seal Beach Pier as soon as I could walk. We were out there all the time. I can remember, at an early age, seeing people from CDFW out on the jetties and charter boats conducting fish count surveys. That piqued my interest, and little did I know then that I would be one of those people conducting the surveys after I joined the department.

I was outside a lot as a kid. It not only led me to a career in environmental science, but it inspired my love for the outdoors. Once I was sure I wanted to pursue a career as a scientist, I knew it needed to be a position where I was out working in the field.

Oil spill response seems like a niche role for a scientist. What led you to pursue the position with OSPR?

I helped out with the Refugio spill when I was working as a scientific aid in Los Alamitos. Although the extent of my assistance was driving animals from Santa Barbara to rehabilitation centers further south, I remember being impressed with how efficiently and effectively so many people were working together on the spill. There were scientists, veterinarians, cleanup contractors and law enforcement officers wearing Tyvek, working together in a very organized manner to care for oiled wildlife and the environment. From then on, I knew I wanted to work not only in the field, but in that kind of a hands-on, collaborative way.

Now that you’ve been with OSPR for five years, what other spills have you responded to? What do your day-to-day activities include?

Right after I joined OSPR, I responded to the Istra Ace spill, which involved a large car carrier ship releasing fuel in the Port of Los Angeles. I also spent nearly three months at the scene of the Grove Incident in Ventura, where crude oil flowed down a culvert in a residential neighborhood near the coast. More recently, I led the environmental response for the Cuyama River Incident which involved a tanker truck accident that spilled several thousand gallons of crude oil into the Cuyama River in Santa Maria. I was hired to be based in Fresno soon after the Governor (Jerry Brown) signed legislation expanding OSPR’s jurisdiction to inland waters of the state. Between myself and others on the newly-formed inland field response team, we’ve also responded to dozens of reports of spills in the Kern County oil fields.

On a day-to-day basis, there are all kinds of reports I look into. It’s quite surprising how many lakes and rivers there are in Central California. I get calls regarding quite a few leaking or even sunken recreational boats, vehicles that overturn and spill fuel, and of course spills and potential spills due to oil and gas infrastructure.

Speaking of the recent incident, as you know that was OSPR’s first moderate-sized spill response during the pandemic. How did you embrace the challenges that came with COVID-19-related safety measures?

It was definitely an adjustment wearing masks and social distancing. With a larger response, there are usually a lot of people working to clean up the oil and the response area in this instance was fairly narrow, so it was challenging making sure everyone was six feet apart. Balancing personnel needs and social distancing, all the while attempting to conduct a timely and efficient cleanup operation was a hurdle. It also made communication a challenge. Not only were there more people working remotely, but responders in the field were in an area with poor cell phone service. All in all, we made the adjustments needed and the cleanup operations were a success.

You are one of only a few CDFW employees licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly drones. How has drone usage helped in your response work?

It’s made it quicker and more efficient in some cases to collect data. We are able to get detailed photos and videos from sites where safety becomes a concern for responders. Historically, on-the-ground assessments are done by scientists walking through a site. Although it’s true that having a person on-scene trumps digital data and is almost always necessary for sampling, with the drones, we can get good footage and assess an area that would otherwise be inaccessible or unsafe. With the Cymric surface expression incident last year, we flew drones right above the actual oil expression, getting great close-up imagery. We can also transmit the data in real-time back to the Command Post. All we need is a decent internet connection.

I’ve also helped other branches of CDFW with the drone. I’m currently working with regional scientists to monitor salmon redds in central California. The drone is able to capture data such as redd counts and fish behavior that would have challenging to obtain otherwise.

As an outdoorsman, do you prefer central California to urban Southern California where you grew up?

Absolutely. Since moving to Fresno from the concrete jungle of Orange County, I think it was a natural progression that I would expand being an avid outdoorsman from fishing to hunting. There’s so much open space around here. I’ve hunted for dove, quail, pheasants, duck and deer. I’ve been fortunate to learn from people I work with who are also passionate about the outdoors. It’s also inspired me to become a CDFW Hunter Education Instructor, which has been a great experience to help people of all ages better understand gun safety and best hunting practices.

I’ve really come to love this area. There are all kinds of things to do and great places to explore when I’m not on the job.

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CDFW Photos