Featured Scientist

A Sierra Nevada red fox dashes into the wilderness after being caught and released as part of an ongoing CDFW study. CDFW image by Corrie McFarland.


Jennifer Carlson on a Roosevelt elk capture in Humboldt County.

Jennifer Carlson is an environmental scientist with the Wildlife Management Program in CDFW’s Northern Region. Based out of Redding, she is one of two unit biologists covering Shasta and Trinity counties. Her biggest current project is working on Sierra Nevada red fox, a state-threatened species, in the Lassen Peak Region, and she is a member of the long-standing Sierra Nevada Red Fox Working Group. In addition, Jennifer has an elk project waiting in the wings and recently conducted the first helicopter survey in her area to attempt to count the different herds in her unit. Her other responsibilities include responding to human-wildlife conflicts and providing expertise and advice to hunters and the public.

Jennifer received her Bachelor of Science degree in Wildlife Management with a minor in Statistics from Humboldt State University in 1999. She also received her Master of Science in Forestry from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2006. She started her career with CDFW in 2005 in the Timber Harvest Review program in the Northern Region. In 2012, she joined the Wildlife Management Program in her current position. When she is not working, she enjoys spending time with her family skiing, camping, hiking, hunting and fishing.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

My family was instrumental in my inspiration to become a wildlife biologist – particularly my dad. He earned his B.S. in Biology and Chemistry and was a self-taught entomologist. He worked for the department in the 1960s as a scientific aid. But at that time it was difficult to get on with the department as a permanent employee, and he never did get hired. Growing up he would take us on nature hikes and quiz us on all the flora and fauna we saw along the way. His own love of the outdoors started with camping and fishing in the central Sierra Nevada with his grandparents (my great-grandparents) when he was a child and it became a family tradition. It became a summer ritual that we carry on today with my own family – a total of four generations!

What is a typical day like for you at work?

As a unit biologist you don’t always know what the day will hold. When one of the aspects of the job is dealing with nuisance wildlife and the public, you could be getting called out to dart a bear that has found its way into town, or a deer that is stuck in a fence. It can include visiting sites to assess property damage caused by a bear, mountain lion, beaver, or bobcat and issuing a depredation permit. In addition to that there are annual wildlife surveys I am responsible for, including deer, band-tailed pigeons, pronghorn antelope, and elk. I also have special projects I work on and am responsible for overseeing, particularly the Sierra Nevada red fox project in the Lassen Peak area. Running a project from start to finish is very time consuming and takes up a lot of my day, especially during the height of the field season. I help out on other projects that my colleagues run, including capturing and collaring deer and elk, fecal DNA projects on deer and elk, and baited camera stations for mid-size carnivores.

What has been the most challenging, and rewarding aspects, of your study of the Sierra Nevada red fox?

We don’t know much about the Sierra Nevada red fox. We think their numbers in the Lassen area may be less than 20 -- we have a minimum population count based on collaring and genetics of 11 individuals currently. Small populations are difficult to study so this one has been a challenge from the start, and it has been compounded by the rugged terrain and conditions that these foxes live in all year-round. With the snowfall we had this past winter, maintaining functional traps has been a challenge, as has keeping our satellite collars working properly. No matter how much we try to alleviate all the obstacles we anticipate, there will always be a level of uncertainty when working on a wild animal in its natural environment that you must accept as a wildlife biologist. But there are great things we have learned from this project that we didn’t know before. For example, we found and documented the first Sierra Nevada red fox den since the early 1900s. We have some amazing video footage of red fox behavior at the den site as well as vocalizations never heard before. We captured, collared and released back into the wild three females and one male red fox. We documented for the first time an inbreeding event where siblings reproduced and had one pup together. We have also learned that these foxes don’t stay at a low elevation throughout the entire winter, as had previously been thought; instead, they will travel back and forth to the higher elevations around Lassen Peak that we thought they only used in the summer.

Tell us about your upcoming elk study.

The goal of the elk study is to estimate abundance, which is difficult with a wide-ranging species that often uses locations that hinder traditional survey methods. To do this, we will capture and collar cow elk in several different herds to learn their movement patterns and apply two different survey techniques to help estimate abundance. The primary technique will be using a helicopter to survey the different herds and count all individuals sighted in each group – both collared and uncollared. Using this data, you can create a “sight ability” model to estimate how elk many you missed and calculate the population size. The other technique would involve extracting DNA from fecal pellets to identify unique individuals and estimate number of individuals in the population. The satellite radio collars will also give us valuable data on habitat use, resource selection, behavior, disease and cause-specific mortality. This will allow the department to develop a long-term elk monitoring program that our recently released Elk Management Plan outlines for the Northern Region. The project will take place primarily in Shasta County (east of Interstate 5) and possibly Trinity County and will hopefully start in the late fall or early winter of this year.

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

It would be hard for me to pick just one project! I would like to help restore a genetically healthy Sierra Nevada red fox population to its historic range. The Sierra Nevada red fox populations that we have left in the state are severely inbred or their genetics have been compromised by other montane (high-elevation) sub-species and/or non-native individuals that have entered the populations. In the last few years we have learned that there are also Sierra Nevada red foxes in the central and southern Cascade mountains of Oregon, although we don’t know the extent or status of that population. I would implement a translocation project that would move individual foxes from their current population into a new one to facilitate “genetic mixing” and increase genetic health. Once we had genetically healthy populations, then I would like to see them reintroduced into areas that they used to occupy, like on and around Mt. Shasta.

I also would like to undertake a massive elk project that was scientifically sound and robust, with an army of people working on it in the Northern Region. With those resources, we should be able to come up with an accurate population size for elk in our region relatively quickly.

What is the best thing about being an environmental scientist?

One of the best things about my job is that I get to be in the outdoors and explore places I never would have been to otherwise. To be able to study one of the rarest mammals in California, the Sierra Nevada red fox, and provide new information on the life history of this elusive canid has been one of the highlights of my career. Flying in a helicopter counting big game species is something I always dreamed about when I was in college and now I am doing it. Some days I have said to myself, I can’t believe I am getting paid to hike on this trail or fly in a helicopter today!

CDFW Photos. Top Photo: Jennifer Carlson cradles a Sierra Nevada red fox that was captured and collared in the Lassen National Forest. CDFW image by Pat Sater.

Travis preparing for an abalone survey dive, Catalina Island. Photo credit Derek Stein, CDFW


Travis working on the California Recreational Fisheries Survey, San Diego. Photo courtesy of Travis Buck


Travis at a CDFW scientific diver recertification training, Catalina Island. Photo credit Colleen Wisniewski


Travis and Scientific Aid Nima Farchadi collecting Pacific Bluefin Tuna biological data, San Diego. Photo credit Erica Mills, CDFW

Travis Buck is an environmental scientist with the CDFW Marine Region’s Highly Migratory Species and Ecosystem Management Project in San Diego. His primary responsibilities include data collection and analysis for highly migratory species and representing CDFW on the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Ecosystem Workgroup.

A Midwest native, Travis moved to California in 2003 after receiving a degree in Geography with an emphasis in Environmental Studies from Ohio University. He also completed Tropical Marine Ecology graduate level coursework in Florida and the Bahamas.

What led you to a career in marine biology?

I became fascinated with the ocean and the creatures that inhabit it at an early age. I remember my grandfather used to take me fishing in Florida and that was always very exciting. I especially liked the idea that you never knew what was on the end of your line until it surfaced, and so I began identifying fish as a kid on those trips. I was a big fan of aquariums too, and when I got a little older I became really interested in snorkeling, freediving and exploring reefs in Florida and the Bahamas. It seemed to be a more serene, foreign world, and I wanted to live closer to it and understand the life that existed within it.

In school, I also excelled at math and science, so marine biology seemed like a natural fit. I have an aunt who jokes that I told her when I was five years old that I was going to be a marine biologist. She can’t believe I followed through with what I said at such a young age.

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

I began my career with CDFW in 2007 after three years as a contractor working on the California Recreational Fisheries Survey (CRFS). For the first 10 years of my career, I worked for the Marine Region’s Invertebrate Management Project, primarily on research and management of the spiny lobster fishery. I recently transferred to the Marine Region’s Highly Migratory Species and Ecosystem Management Project to expand my knowledge of marine fisheries.

I think the mandate of CDFW is a pretty epic one, to ensure that California’s natural resources are there and are healthy for future generations. I can’t really think of a responsibility more noble than that. When I look back on the almost 15 years I’ve been associated with CDFW, it’s almost impossible to fathom how much I have learned, and also how much of the state I’ve been able to see through being employed here.

What is a typical day at work like for you?

It might be crunching numbers to track Pacific Bluefin Tuna landings (since they are managed with a quota), or it might be assisting scientific aids with dockside sampling questions, or it might be traveling out of state for a Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting, or a plethora of other duties. Issues with natural resources are dynamic and always changing, and so are the assignments at CDFW. I think most environmental scientists working for CDFW will tell you that there’s no such thing as a “typical day,” and that’s another reason that keeps me here, there’s not a lot of repetition of tasks. You’re constantly learning new skills.

What is the best thing about your job?

I love being at the forefront of marine-related research and being “in the know” about major issues affecting the ocean and its fisheries when sometimes the majority of the public aren’t even aware. And it’s not only about the major issues affecting the ocean, but also the cool discoveries. My job provides the opportunity to act as a messenger, to disseminate these cool discoveries, as well as important problems, to a wider audience.

Diving at the Channel Islands over the years for CDFW, particularly the abalone surveys, provided some of the best memories I’ll ever have. Some of the things I saw underwater were so amazing and surreal. For instance, after one survey at Catalina Island, as we were slowly ascending to the boat, it started to rain. A school of barracuda were above us, and we could see raindrops breaking the ocean’s surface right above them while we hung out in the kelp forest for our safety stop. Scenes like that I’ll never forget. And all the people I’ve been able to meet and work with. Wow, it’s kind of mind-blowing looking back at how much information and how many people and places this type of work can expose you to.

What is the accomplishment you’re most proud of?

I’m proud of the work I did to successfully develop and manage the lobster report card program. Before lobster report cards, which gather data and are required for lobster fishing, we had no idea how large the recreational fishery was for lobster, or how much lobster that sector landed each year. Now we have a much better grasp on that information. Also, I’ve enjoyed writing two articles for Outdoor California magazine that detailed CDFW research on abalone and lobster. Writing is a passion of mine.

I’m also proud of becoming a CDFW diver. I passed the entry examination with only the bare minimum number of required dives under my belt. It was very physical, with underwater breath-holding exercises in the ocean that are pretty difficult. I was pumped when I completed those.

What interesting projects are you working on currently?

I’m really interested in the work my project is doing with Pacific Bluefin Tuna. Not only do I track the total landings of this species in California, but we recently began collecting genetic samples of Pacific Bluefin Tuna landed in San Diego, which could give us further insight into the population being targeted by offshore fishing here. Pacific Bluefin Tuna were so heavily fished over the last century by other countries, the population is at a small fraction of its historic levels. There are real efforts being made at the international level to rebuild the population, however. That’s a good thing.

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

I would organize a giant collaboration to better understand how the combination of warming ocean temperatures, increasing ocean acidification, and increasing hypoxia (like we are seeing take place around the world) will affect all of the commercially and recreationally important marine species off the U.S. West Coast. Humans need to know these things, so we can prepare for a rapidly changing world.

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

Work on your math and writing skills! There are a lot of numbers involved, and there is a lot of writing involved. Also, natural resource management actually involves managing people, since we are the ones exploiting the natural resources. So, work on your interpersonal skills – you’ll need them!

Tell us something about yourself that people might be surprised to learn.

I love surfing. I’m obsessed with everything about it! I’m convinced it’s the most beautiful, healthy and rewarding passion there is. I’ve also survived two boat crashes! Honestly, I have. Both were research trips, and neither was the fault of the researchers on board!

CDFW Photos. Top Photo: Travis with a yellowtail, San Clemente Island. Photo courtesy of Travis Buck.

Ed trains a CRFS sampler aboard a CPFV off Fort Bragg



Ed examining catch aboard a boat in Shelter Cove

Ed preparing to tag a brown rockfish aboard a CPFV off La Jolla

Ed collecting a salmon head in Shelter Cove

Trinidad Pier Youth Fishing Tournament CDFW Staff

Ed and his new grandson, Edgar V

Ed training new CRFS samplers in Shelter Cove

Edgar “Ed” W. Roberts III is an environmental scientist in CDFW’s Eureka office. As the lead for the California Recreational Fisheries Survey (CRFS) in Del Norte, Humboldt and Mendocino counties, Ed is responsible for all aspects of the CRFS on the north coast, from training new staff, to creating sampling schedules, to making sure sampling goals are met.

Ed was born in Oceanside and grew up in San Diego, where he lived until he left for college at Humboldt State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

My passion for fishing and stewardship of the environment was instilled in me by my father and grandfather along the streams and lakeshores of the Sierra Nevada. I kept the first fish I caught (a nice CDFG stocked rainbow trout taken at June Lake when I was 5) in my mother’s freezer for years and would break it out for show-and-tell whenever someone new would come to the house. Growing up in San Diego, I spent a lot of time at the ocean, and I read and watched Jacques Cousteau religiously. I had a sense early on in life that I wanted to become a marine fisheries biologist.

During those fishing trips with my father and grandfather, I also met many CDFW game wardens. Through them I learned about CDFW’s mission, which really appealed to me and my outdoor ethics.

How did you come to work for CDFW?

I started my fisheries career working seasonal and part-time jobs, as most CDFW scientists do. I worked on the CRFS’ predecessor, the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey, for the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, as well as several CDFW scientific aid positions. Those projects were interesting and included an aerial census of the harbor seal population in California and a bycatch study of the commercial spot prawn fishery.

In 2000, I was hired as a marine biologist to work primarily on outreach and developing youth fishing and educational programs at the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve and Back Bay Science Center. Since then I’ve worked on the implementation of the Marine Life Management Act, the Nearshore Fishery Management Plan, the development and implementation of CRFS, and other work for the Marine Region’s Groundfish and Invertebrate projects.

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

I represented CDFW on a collaborative groundfish tagging project from 2002 to 2006. At the time, I believe it was the biggest fish tagging program of its kind in the state – we tagged over 32,300 fish from 32 species and learned quite a bit about the life histories and movements of some previously little-studied species. During the early 2000s, the California charter boat industry was hit hard by recently implemented bottomfishing restrictions that were necessary to help depleted fish stocks recover. This tagging study was paid for primarily through federal groundfish disaster relief funds. We hired sportfishing boats that were impacted by these new restrictions to use as research platforms, helping to ease the economic problems their owners and operators were facing. At the same time, we, the fishery biologists, worked side-by-side with the captains, crews and volunteer anglers we enlisted to help us with the work, benefiting from their experience and on-the-water observations. It was a great example of resource managers and consumptive users working together for a common purpose. I am very thankful for the opportunity to have been a part of that project.

 

Tell us about your current work with the CRFS.

The CRFS is a statewide survey of marine recreational anglers. CRFS samplers intercept saltwater sportfishers at the completion of their fishing trips, ask them some questions about that trip and their fishing habits and collect biological data from their catch. The data we collect are then used to create estimates of saltwater sport catch and effort. Those estimates are used by fishery managers at both the state and federal level to manage our state’s finfish resources for sustainability. If you’re reading this and you’ve ever participated in our survey, I want to thank you for your cooperation, and for doing your part to conserve our resources.

Within the CRFS, my specific and primary responsibility is to ensure that the data we collect is of the highest quality. I work towards fulfilling that responsibility by cultivating and maintaining good working relationships with the angling public to increase awareness of and cooperation with our survey, by working with my staff in the field to make sure our strict sampling protocols are followed, by reviewing the data my staff collect for quality control purposes, and by reviewing the estimates of marine finfish catch and effort that are generated using those data.

CRFS, by design, can be used to document changes in fisheries and species assemblages that may be due to variable oceanic conditions caused by climate change. We observed many unusual occurrences this last year, and I’m currently working to publish some of those findings.

What is the best thing about your job?

Aside from the pride I have in knowing I am working to maintain, enhance and restore our marine ecosystems for the use and enjoyment of present and future Californians, I get a lot of satisfaction from helping students and recent graduates with degrees in natural resources gain valuable experience in their chosen field. Many former employees have expressed their appreciation for the opportunity to hone their skills. Those thanks really mean a lot to me and make me feel like I’m making a difference.

Over the course of your career, was there a discovery or incident that surprised you?

I recently published a note regarding a tag return from a California scorpionfish that I tagged in 2004 (tagged during the same project I mentioned previously). It was recaptured in 2017, after spending almost 14 years at liberty with my tag in its back. Interestingly, the fish was caught in almost the same location where it was originally captured and remains the longest documented tag retention for this species.

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

Most of the people I’ve met during my career are not here for the money – they do their jobs because they have a desire to learn and passion for the resource with the end goal being sustainability. Don’t go into the field expecting to get rich. Cultivate your passion for science and resource management during your education, and be prepared to work entry level, seasonal, part-time jobs to make connections and get your foot in the door. Success in this field is equal parts passion and perseverance.

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

Fishing and camping with my family is the greatest pleasure in my life. On a day off, or even after work, you might find me fishing the south jetty at Humboldt Bay with my wife, children, brother-in-law and nephews. On vacation, you might find me camping and fishing with the same crew, plus some aunts and uncles, at Trinity Lake or on the Kern River.

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

I’m an Eagle Scout, volunteered with Scouting for more than 15 years, and I am an Army veteran. I’ve played fantasy baseball with the same group of people for the last 30 years. Also, my grandson, Edgar V, was born on March 16, 2019. I can’t wait to help my son pass on our love for fishing to his son.