Featured Scientist

One of several burned trail cameras Martinelli lost in the Knoxville Wildlife Area as a result of the County Fire in July 2018.


Martinelli on the bagpipes


Martinelli holds a kingsnake from the Santa Rosa Plain Vernal Pool Ecological Reserve in Sonoma County

Stacy Martinelli is CDFW’s wine country wildlife biologist. An environmental scientist based in Santa Rosa, Stacy is assigned to Napa and Sonoma counties where she has worked the past 10 years conducting wildlife research, resolving human-wildlife conflicts and helping manage CDFW’s properties.

Stacy was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. She earned an undergraduate degree in wildlife management from Montreal’s McGill University and a master’s degree in wildlife ecology, also from McGill. For her graduate research, she studied black ducks in Nova Scotia, one of Canada’s Maritime provinces on the Atlantic Coast.

What brought you to the United States?

Work – like every immigrant. I just couldn’t find work in Canada so I answered an ad in an ornithological newsletter looking for help on a waterfowl research project down in Los Banos. I was like, “I’ll do that. That’ll be fun. I’ll just start building my résumé.” It was a six-month contract helping a graduate student from the University of Missouri with some research. The project ended and I thought, “I like California.” That was in 1995.

How did you get to CDFW?

After Los Banos, somebody knew somebody that needed a biologist for the Suisun Resource Conservation District (SRCD) in the Suisun Marsh. I spent three years in that job. I lived out in the barracks on Grizzly Island alongside CDFW employees. It was really a lot of fun. At SRCD, we worked closely with the department as well. So I knew people and how the department worked and I thought I would love to work for the department. I applied for a Habitat Conservation Program job in San Diego in 1988 and spent a year down there as an environmental scientist reviewing projects and issuing permits. I got a transfer and promotion to our Bay Delta Region and worked in our Timberland Conservation Program until 2008 when I got my current job.

What’s kept you in this job for the past decade?

It’s such a great job. I am so thankful for this job. It’s so variable. It’s a good mix of field work, research and monitoring. There’s a lot of hands-on work. Sonoma and Napa counties are really exceptional because there is just high biodiversity here and there is still a lot of open space. I am a little worried about the housing crunch and all the talk to build more housing but there’s still a lot of great wildlife habitat that’s out here. We’ve got the coast in Sonoma. In Napa, we’ve got the beautiful east side with the Knoxville Wildlife Area that’s still pristine. And even here on the west side of Santa Rosa, we’ve got (endangered) tiger salamanders. We’ve got neighbors around them, but they’re still here and that’s really cool. We’re trying to do everything we can to make sure they don’t disappear.

Last October, this region experienced some of the most devastating wildfires in U.S. history. You’ve had more fires this year. What’s been the impact to wildlife?

There was high mortality for sure, especially with the Tubbs Fire last year, which burned so quickly. The species that live here – bobcat, coyote, gray fox, blacktail deer – they’re fairly resilient and adaptable. I don’t worry about them on a population level. They are going to be fine.

I am working on two projects right now looking at fire effects. One of those is in the Knoxville Wildlife Area. This is year three of a camera trap study. It’s a way of measuring the wildlife community with cameras in terms of abundance and presence of different species and the balance among those species.

I’ve got 23 trail cameras spread out there in a grid pattern about a kilometer apart. I’ve got half of my cameras on the west side of the wildlife area and half of my cameras on the east side. The east side burned in July in the County Fire and I lost a bunch of cameras. They just melted. But some survived and I’ve got photos of the flames and the smoke and everything.

The cool thing is I have three years of baseline data so I know what the wildlife community looks like pre-fire and now we get to see what the wildlife community looks like post-fire. We actually talked to Cal Fire at one point about doing a prescribed burn to study this exact thing, and now 6,000 acres are gone as a result of the County Fire.

My hope is that we see a rejuvenation of the chaparral community because that stuff just gets super woody. Deer browse those shrub species and as they age and become woody, they lose their nutritional value. All the new growth is going to provide a wonderful new food source for them. I’m pretty excited about the whole thing.

It sounds like the Knoxville Wildlife Area is a pretty special place.

It’s a very important piece of property. I’m so lucky I get to work on it. It’s huge. It’s 22,000 acres of mostly oak woodlands and grasslands with the chaparral component. There’s not a lot of other public hunting land around here. If you’re a Bay Area resident, Knoxville is the closest place to hunt deer.

The funny thing is when I first started working there I was like, “OK, nothing lives here.” I never saw any wildlife. Maybe I would see a deer or two by the side of the road but even when I explored the backcountry, I never saw much of anything. It was like a dead zone. What lives here? I have no idea.

But we’ve found all kinds of wildlife with our camera study. We found bears, which I thought was cool. We knew there were mountain lions, but we wanted documentation. There are more deer there than I thought. We never used to see bucks. But then I got some cameras up in the high elevations, the mostly inaccessible areas and it was like, “Aha! I know where you are now!” We saw badger. We found roadrunner. We found spotted skunk. These are all species that would be really tough to see in the field. So it’s been really exciting.

Is there a particular project you’ve worked on over your career that you’re especially proud of?

I’m not sure I’ve done that signature project yet. To me, land conservation is the biggest contribution that I think I can make and we as a department can make. They’re just not making any more land. If we don’t get the land, there’s always the risk of development. I’m pretty passionate about land conservation for wildlife. So I’m waiting for that opportunity to be part of locking up a piece of land for the wildlife community – and for the public, too.

What advice would you give a young person thinking about a career in natural resources?

I think the best thing is to do as much field work as you possibly can – especially during your undergraduate studies. Volunteer. Get an internship. Just be active in the wildlife community as best you can.

We have students call us quite often and we hire a bunch of scientific aides. I’ve done a lot of interviews and looked at a lot of résumés. Unfortunately, we see people who have graduated from college without a stitch of field experience. They’ve not done one thing. Start padding your résumé and just be prepared the next couple of years to travel around and do field projects throughout the state, throughout the country, throughout the world. Eventually you will get there. But be patient because you have to suffer some horrible pay and eating Top Ramen for a while before you can latch onto something permanent.

Tell us something about yourself people would be surprised to learn.

I play bagpipes in a bagpipe band. I play with the Macintosh Pipe Band in Larkspur, Marin County, and I go down and practice every week. We compete in the Bay Area, Monterey, and have played across the U.S., Scotland and Mexico. I learned how to play in Canada and I’ve stuck with it ever since. It’s a passion of mine.

Photos courtesy of Stacy Martinelli. Top Photo: Martinelli searches Mount St. Helena in Napa County for deer fecal pellets as part of CDFW’s statewide deer population survey, which extracts DNA information from the pellets.

Simpson surveying Guthrie Creek in Humboldt County to determine the extent of existing and restorable fish habitat. Photo by CDFW’s Dan Hansen.

Nicholas “Nick” Simpson is a senior environmental scientist (specialist) with CDFW’s Northern Region, based in Eureka. He works in the Timberland Conservation Program helping to manage natural communities on privately owned timberlands. He is responsible for ensuring that timber operations will not lead to significant or long-term negative impacts on aquatic communities. Simpson’s work includes technical support for CDFW timber staff reviewing timber harvesting plans, lake and streambed alteration agreements, threatened/endangered species consultations, incidental take permits, and habitat conservation plans. Nick is also conducting studies to evaluate the effects of timber operations such as water diversions, road construction and riparian zone management on aquatic communities.

Nick earned his Bachelor and Master of Science Degrees in freshwater fisheries and natural resources at Humboldt State University. Prior to coming to CDFW in 2013, he worked in the private and public sectors as a hydrologist and fisheries biologist, where he evaluated past and current timber harvesting effects on aquatic communities on the North Coast.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

My father and grandfather introduced me to fishing and diving at a young age, and I became fascinated with all things swimming. Exploration led to questions, which ultimately formed a drive to conduct scientific evaluations. Later, as a Fisheries major at Humboldt State University, I became intrigued by the extensive network of local salmon-bearing rivers and streams on private timberlands. Under the context of historical and current logging practices, as well as recent salmonid population declines, I wanted to study the effectiveness of conservation strategies being applied in these watersheds.

What is a typical day like for you at work?

A typical day may include a variety of field inspections including proposed timber harvesting plan reviews, sensitive species or lake and streambed alteration agreement consultations, or compliance/effectiveness inspections of completed projects. My day consists of meeting with foresters and other agency representatives at the closest location we can drive to with a truck, then utilizing all-terrain vehicles and hiking to access remote forest locations. Inspections help ensure that fish and amphibian habitat were delineated accurately, and appropriate riparian buffers are clearly flagged in the field. In addition, watercourse crossings are commonly evaluated to assess their appropriateness and functionality and whether reconstruction, removal or maintenance is required. The following day is usually spent writing reports to record my field observations and to support my recommendations.

What is most challenging about your work?

The most challenging aspect of the job is balancing permit review, scientific study/research and landowner outreach. Permit review, in the form of timber harvesting plans and lake and streambed alteration agreements can be intense, especially when timber is selling at a higher price and more permits are in need of review than normal. I find it important to keep a landscape-level perspective, through research and landowner outreach to ensure conservation efforts are maximized in watersheds with critical habitat for sensitive species.

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

I recently completed a pilot study evaluating the effects of water diversion on macroinvertebrates in headwater streams. It was a great experience to generate a scientific study to support protective measures used in Lake and Streambed Alteration Agreements. The project also ended up winning the “Early Career Scientist Best Poster” award at the 2017 CDFW science symposium.

I have also been involved with reviewing multiple logging road crossings and fish barrier projects, which, after execution, have ultimately allowed fish access to formerly blocked habitat. It is always rewarding to facilitate the expansion of salmon range and the restoration of habitat.

What is your favorite species to interact with or study?

My favorite species is Coho salmon. Coho’s life history includes a juvenile winter rearing period, which makes this species highly susceptible to logging impacts such as increases in turbidity and sedimentation. Any recent Coho reoccupation of formerly unoccupied habitats (usually after barrier removal, or stream quality restoration) is the ultimate indicator of the effectiveness of forest conservation and restoration efforts. However, we are still learning about the dynamic aspects of streams and salmon, such as juvenile winter rearing and stream limiting factors.

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

Our website is regularly updated, and is a great resource for those who want to know more about the Timberland Conservation Program. It is located at www.wildlife.ca.gov/conservation/timber.

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

Large woody debris (LWD) is an important stream component for Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch). In a recent analysis, we found that 73 percent of Humboldt County Coho streams are depleted in LWD due to historical “stream cleaning” (log harvesting from streams) and past logging practices. It would be great to develop a model to assess the best restoration strategies based on stream channel type and condition.

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

I would consider gaining experience in the field you are interested in as early and often as possible. A common misconception in college is that you go to school for four years, graduate, and then obtain your dream job right away. In reality, employers are looking for someone with experience, in addition to the basic academic knowledge. It is worth putting in the time as a seasonal technician or volunteer while in school to gain that valuable experience.

CDFW Photos. Top Photo: Simpson performing a survey of a tributary to Big River in Mendocino County. It was determined that the waterfall was not a barrier to adult steelhead. Photo by CDFW's Jon Hendrix.