Featured Scientist

Shoshone pupfish habitat in the Amargosa River.


Shoshone pupfish from the Amargosa River.


Nick in the Amargosa River following green sunfish removal.

CDFW environmental scientist Nick Buckmaster works as a biologist in the Heritage and Wild Trout program. Based in Bishop (in the northern part of Inyo County), he’s far from where he grew up in San Diego County, but he couldn’t be closer to what he loves: California’s natural resources.

As a member of the team managing heritage and wild trout, Nick helps protect and restore native trout and habitats through field studies and data analysis. He initially joined CDFW six years ago to work in habitat conservation, moving over to his current assignment about a year ago. He’s a graduate of UC Davis with Bachelor’s degrees in Wildlife Fisheries Conservation and Geology. His Master’s degree is in Ecology.

Tell us about your current assignment – what to you do?

I’m the heritage and wild trout biologist for Inyo and Mono counties; which is really about managing the Eastern Sierra fisheries in a sustainable fashion. Rather than relying on stocking, we work to manage the populations to ensure good fishing into the future. That allows me to work on two different threatened trout species that occur out here – Lahontan cutthroat trout and Paiute cutthroat trout – as well as manage some of the most iconic trout fisheries anywhere in California, if not the United States. On a day-to-day basis, I could be anywhere from 11,000 feet up in the High Sierra, to the desert streams of the Owens River Valley. It’s a pretty sweet setup. When I got the job offer to come out here, I didn’t think twice. I packed up and lived out of my car for a couple of weeks, until I found a place to rent.

So you’re checking on the health of a fish in a particular body of water to make sure it’s doing well, and that tells you other fish in that area are doing well?

Fisheries monitoring can include a number of things. A lot of it can be quick reconnaissance assessments -- looking at population structure and relative weight of the fish. From there you can drill down into habitat specifics and stream production. What’s the stream temperature, are your pools deep enough, is there enough food for the fish to grow, are they growing fast enough, are they reaching the size we want? Are there other potential stressors, like drought, flood or upstream water diversions?

How did you come to decide on ecology – and fisheries, specifically – as a profession?

I grew up in a small town (Descanso) playing in the mountains and hills every day, hunting and fishing. When I took biology in high school, there was a brief section on ecology, where we talked about lakes and how the various fisheries are supported, and I was a huge fisherman when I was younger, and it just clicked. All of a sudden, fishing became a science for me. Science was something I was already passionate about. I always loved the outdoors, ecology and nature.

How do you balance the need to preserve our resources in their natural state, and the idea that we can or should take action to assist species?

One of the things I did previously out there was work a lot with pupfish in lower elevation areas. Those are species that only persist because of human intervention. The Owens pupfish was rescued by a fish and game biologist from extinction in 1969 – if he hadn’t put them in a bucket, they would have blanked out. At the end of the day, conservation always requires some measure of management.

In 1910, humans brought largemouth bass into the Owens Basin. That drove the Owens pupfish to the brink of extinction. If humans hadn’t also stepped in and removed the bass, the Owens pupfish would have been wiped out. There was a similar situation with cutthroat trout in the Walker Basin (Kern County), where a lot of the habitat had been impacted by logging in the late 1920s. The habitat still hasn’t recovered, so it’s up to us as a management agency to go in and try to take that ecosystem-based approach to restore the stream and the fishery.

Almost every habitat I’ve encountered out here has been so profoundly impacted by humans … it’s not necessarily a question of whether to intervene, but how to intervene in the most appropriate way.

Is there a particular project you’ve worked on in which you saw the results and realized you made a difference?

Last August we had green sunfish invade the Shoshone Springs on the other side of Death Valley. Springs in the desert are a lot like islands in the ocean. They’re the only habitats like them for tens or hundreds of miles. In this case, Shoshone Springs has an endemic pupfish called the Shoshone pupfish. All pupfish, at least in the desert southwest, are highly susceptible to non-native predation. These non-native predators can eliminate a pupfish population in less than six months in some cases. So in early August, we had the non-native green sunfish show up in the only known habitat for Shoshone pupfish. They had washed down from Crystal Reservoir in Nevada during a heavy rain season – typically it’s a dry riverbed. Another employee and I went out and worked in 110 degree weather, for two weeks, to remove the sunfish from the pupfish habitat. Within the course of just two weeks, we removed what can only be described as an existential threat to the Shoshone pupfish. Those efforts secured the species going forward. At the end, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more satisfied with my job.

If you had an unlimited budget and unlimited time, what project would you like to tackle?

I’d probably try to restore cutthroat trout in the Walker Basin. It’s one of the most distinct cutthroat trout on the face of the planet. They’ve been in that basin for millions of years. They’re very rare at this time, but if left to their own devices they get really large. They’re fantastic fish to catch – they’re just beautiful. I would probably put them back. We all love catching big cutthroat trout at Pyramid Lake (Nevada), and I’d like to see that in Eastern Sierra. A project like that would fit with my passions of conservation, native fish management and recreation.

Can you describe a typical day of work?

Today I’m working from home on a couple of reports involving analysis of fish population data. On a field day, I would be hiking into the high country or back country to conduct some level of fisheries assessment. Office days involve typical tasks like answering emails, data analysis or writing summary reports. To be honest, I really like the balance that I have. While it’s critical to do field work in order to collect the information necessary to make decisions as natural resources agency, it’s also important to answer emails and maintain relationships with the public, co-workers and management. If you collect all the data in the world, and don’t share it, you might as well not have collected it at all.

CDFW Photos

Alisa Ellsworth holds a newly-collared bobcat for the Eastern Sierra Bobcat Project.


Alisa Ellsworth and crew working on Fish Slough Ecological Reserve restoration project.

CDFW Senior Environmental Scientist Alisa Ellsworth supervises the Inland Desert Region’s Northern Lands Program. Based out of the Bishop office, Alisa oversees 10 employees who perform a wide variety of activities including land acquisition planning, coordinating mitigation for incidental take, and managing over 120,000 acres of state ecological reserves and wildlife areas in Inyo, Mono and San Bernardino counties.

A Central Valley native, Alisa grew up in Visalia. She attended both undergraduate and graduate school at Fresno State, where she completed a bachelor’s degree in botany in 1993 and a master’s degree in biology in 1995. Her thesis focused on vernal pool ecology in Madera County.

What inspired you to become a biologist?

My interest in science first started in high school when I had to do an insect and plant collection for my biology class. I really enjoyed learning how to identify things in nature. When I started college, I was naturally drawn to biology courses and my path was set. I met a group of people that liked to go out botanizing and birding on the weekends and a whole new world opened up for me.

My first wildlife job was in 1992 with Pacific Southwest Research Station, estimating the density of spotted owls in Sequoia National Park. This is where I learned how to hike at night using a compass and topographic map, as there weren’t GPS units back in those days. The work also involved gathering vital rate data (reproduction and mortality) as well as characterizing diets from regurgitated pellets. In 1993, I spent an amazing summer working for the US Forest Service. I hiked all over the Sierra National Forest, mapping vegetation types and looking for rare plants.

How did you come to work for CDFW?

I worked as a scientific aide for the Habitat Conservation group in the Central Region for a year and a half when I was in college. After I graduated, I began working as a private consultant until 1996 conducting rare plant surveys, wetland delineations and revegetation projects. Around that time, I caught the travel bug and applied for a research assistant position focused on field studies of the guanaco, a South American wild camelid related to the llama. This took me to Torres Del Paine National Park in the Patagonia region of southern Chile, where I worked on guanaco reproductive strategies, spacing strategies and movement. We radio collared young guanacos (called chulengos) and monitored for survival and cause-specific mortality. This involved watching a mother give birth to her baby and then soon after running in and grabbing the baby and quickly putting a radio collar on it. Most of the mothers were pretty mild mannered, but one tried stomping on us and spit all over us, which was quite smelly!

Afterward, I joined the Peace Corps and stayed in Ecuador until 1999, working on environmental education projects in schools. When I returned to the United States, I worked briefly as a consultant again, and then took an associate biologist position with Caltrans in Fresno. When a position opened up in CDFW’s Bishop office, in the streambed alteration agreement program, I jumped at it. I was hired in 2001 and have never wanted to leave Bishop since.

Over my career with CDFW, I have managed the X9B and X9C deer zones, the Owens Valley tule elk zones and the White Mountain bighorn sheep hunt zone. I have collected and analyzed wildlife population data for upland game birds, mule deer, tule elk and Nelson bighorn sheep. I’ve provided harvest recommendations and direction for population management of those game animals. Since 2008, I’ve been with the Lands program, working on acquisition projects, writing grants and working with the Wildlife Conservation Board and other non-governmental organizations on projects of shared interest.

We sometimes say that the Eastern Sierra is “the most beautiful part of California you’ve never seen.” What is unique about this ecosphere?

The Eastern Sierra is comprised of mostly public land with very little development compared to many other areas around California. This allows for intact wildlife populations to exist in vast expanses of native habitat. For example, the federally endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep can be found in the high alpine environment in the summer months. They then move downslope in the winter to take advantage of available food not buried under snow. More than 600 bighorn in 13 occupied herd units can now be found in the Sierras, compared to 1995 when there were only 105 left after being devastated from diseases transmitted from competing domestic livestock in the high alpine meadows.

The sheer beauty of the tall mountains and the abundance of wildlife make it a truly special place. I enjoy hearing the tule elk bugling in the fall evenings near the Owens River. If you really want a treat, you can wake up before the sun rises to go observe the greater sage grouse congregate on their leks (meadows or barren areas with little cover) during the spring breeding season. The males put on quite a display in hopes of attracting a female by puffing out their chest, inflating air sacs and making unique sounds that I equate to drops of water.

What kinds of projects are conducted on the reserves and wildlife areas you manage?

Our activities are quite diverse, including managing water rights and grazing, controlling invasive species and performing various wildlife surveys. I serve as the lead for the Eastern Sierra bobcat study, which was initiated in 2014-2015 as part of a three-year project to assess current populations in Inyo and Mono counties. Specific data collected during the study include bobcat population size, density and age structure, as well as home range size, habitat selection, prey base and reproduction.

I also am also the lead for the low-elevation mesocarnivore survey project. This involves the use of remote cameras to capture detailed images of wildlife species such as bobcat, coyote and gray fox. The surveys help us estimate the percent of the study area that a species of interest occurs by placing one camera within a 10.4 Km cell and surveying 100 cells over multiple weeks. The data collected provides occupancy of the species surveyed. Capture-mark-recapture surveys can be done using this method with species such as bobcats that can be identified because of their unique coat patterns.

Inyo and Mono counties have been divided into eight study areas using geographical boundaries that the mesocarnivore surveys will be rotated through. Initially, these surveys will provide occupancy and abundance of individual species within each study area. Over time, data collected from the surveys can be useful to identify population trends.

What has been the most satisfying part of your CDFW career?

I really enjoy working with outstanding people who are focused on managing and conserving the state’s most important places and wildlife. I’m particularly proud of the conservation work that’s been conducted for the benefit of the Round Valley deer herd. We purchased several important properties within its winter range in Rovana and Swall Meadows, with the goal of protecting an intact migration corridor for them to move up and down in elevation to and from their winter and summer ranges.

What projects would you undertake if you had unlimited money and resources?

I am passionate about conserving natural areas for the perpetuation of healthy ecosystems and the wildlife populations they support. California is an incredibly biologically diverse state and these places are truly unique. By protecting them, we will allow them to be enjoyed generations to come. My most recent focus has been working to conserve the greater sage grouse through land acquisition and conservation easements. Funding all of the proposed actions in the Bi-State Action Plan for Greater sage grouse would be a dream come true.

CDFW photos.
Top photo: Alisa Ellsworth works a Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep capture.