Featured Scientist

Regina working as a student assistant at the Pesticide Investigations Unit. © Regina Donohoe, all rights reserved.

Regina collects grunion eggs at El Capitan State Beach after a major Santa Barbara oil spill. © Regina Donohoe, all rights reserved.

Crew sampling in Tyvek suits following the Santa Barbara oil spill. © Regina Donohoe, all rights reserved.

Regina Donohoe is an OSPR staff toxicologist working in the Resource Restoration Program. As an ecotoxicologist, she combines the methods of ecology and toxicology to evaluate the effects of pollutants on fish, wildlife and their habitats.

For the past 17 years, Regina has been involved in the remediation of hazardous waste sites, petroleum production facilities and military bases to ensure that chemical contamination is cleaned up to levels that are protective of our natural resources. Regina also provides ecotoxicology support for spill response and assesses the injuries resulting from spills as part of the natural resource damage assessment team.

Regina received a Ph.D. in toxicology from Oregon State University, a M.S. in ecology from San Diego State University and a B.S. in environmental toxicology from the University of California at Davis.

Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?

One summer day when I was a bored five-year-old, my mom asked me to roam our foothills property and bring back every different kind of leaf I could find. It was a clever mom move to keep me busy all afternoon but it is my earliest memory of being fascinated with nature. However, it wasn’t until I met my high school biology teacher that I knew I wanted to be a scientist. Her classroom was a museum filled with skeletons, shells, plants and aquaria of fish, and that class set me on the path to major in science in college. Later, my graduate school advisors shared their passion for science and kept me going.

What got you interested in working with fish and wildlife?

While trying to decide on an undergraduate major, I took an introduction to environmental toxicology class. The professor told the grisly story of the dancing cats of Minimata Bay, Japan during the 1950s. After mercury-laden wastewater was released into the Bay, the fish accumulated it and when the cats ate the fish, they began to walk erratically (or “dance”) because the mercury poisoned their nervous system. It was an “aha” moment. The fact that a single chemical could disrupt an entire ecosystem intrigued and saddened me at the same time, inspiring me to declare environmental toxicology as my major and the focus of my career.

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

It was 1982 when I took a year-long Student Assistant job at the Pesticide Investigation Unit Laboratory of the then-California Department of Fish and Game. The job duties included “creamer patrol,” picking up dead carp from agricultural drains in the Sacramento Valley for pesticide analysis. On a 100° F day, the fish decayed so quickly that when they were scooped up in the net they often exploded into a creamy mess. Another aspect of the job was to conduct bioassays with fish to determine what levels of pesticides in the water were safe. I left the position to study the effects of sewage discharges on the algal populations of Tijuana estuary, meeting my husband while knee-deep in mud. After that, I researched how chemicals could act like hormones, with environmental estrogens altering reproduction in fish. This led to an ecotoxicologist job at the California Environmental Protection Agency. A friend recommended I apply for a job at OSPR and 17 years later, I returned to where I had started.

What is a typical day like for you at work?

My work moves in a couple of different gears. On the slower gear, a ten-year timeframe, I work on remediation of military bases and hazardous waste sites. For each site, the nature and extent of chemical contamination is characterized, the method and level of cleanup is decided, cleanup occurs and then there is follow-up monitoring. For example, we have removed lead bullets from sand dune firing ranges, metal plating waste from salt marshes and crude oil from grasslands. Throughout the multi-year process for each site, I make many visits, read reports, attend meetings and provide comments related to ecotoxicology.

When spills happen, everything shifts into high gear. I pull together information about the spill, plan and conduct studies and assist wherever help is needed. After the spill response ends, the natural resource damage assessment process continues but at a less frenetic pace. I analyze data, prepare presentations and write up results.

In between, I am involved in training and planning, teaching classes on the effects of oil on ecosystems and reviewing literature to be better prepared for the next spill.

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

When we were called to respond to the oil spill in Santa Barbara in 2015, we had to plan for fish sampling one day and carry it out the following day. Usually, it might take a couple of weeks to organize such a sampling event. But people from multiple agencies volunteered their gear and help, others quickly purchased needed supplies, experts flew in to collect tissue samples and folks drove many miles to be there on short notice. The sampling day began early, including gearing up in bulky protective clothing to fish on the beach, and ended with a late night of data intake. Everyone brought a positive attitude and worked hard to get the samples we needed to support the natural resource damage assessment. We achieved a near-impossible task because everyone gave it their all. The power of people working together truly surprised and amazed me.

What do you enjoy most about working in ecotoxicology?

California has incredibly diverse ecosystems – deserts, grasslands, chaparral, forests, rivers, wetlands, estuaries and marine habitat. Spills happen all over California, providing me opportunities to investigate impacts to many plant and animal species in a wide variety of habitats and spill scenarios. For example, I’ve been asked: How does diesel affect an old growth redwood tree? What levels of metals are of concern to California Tiger Salamanders? Is brine harmful to ephemeral streams? How does crude oil impact kelp forests? These questions make me scratch my head and think, and learn new things every day. That, to me, is the best thing about being a scientist.

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

When scientists began to evaluate how oil spills affected ecosystems in the 1970s, they did some interesting laboratory and field studies, but they were limited by the analytical chemistry and assessment methods available at the time. In many cases, oil concentrations in water or tissues were not measured or were simply quantified as total hydrocarbons. Today, we know that oil is a mixture of hundreds to thousands of chemicals that we can quantify at very low levels in the environment. We also have new biochemical and genetic tools that can detect subtle changes in animals in response to oil exposure. It would be great to repeat many of those earlier studies using our current technologies to further our understanding of how oil affects ecosystems, improving our ability to respond to spills and restore habitats following spills.

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

Follow that innate scent trail. What makes work seem like play? What keeps you going when you lose the trail? What rewards you at the end of the day? If you have a passion for science or the natural resources, make it your career and be sure to stop and smell all those interesting scents along the way.

Photo © Regina Donohoe, all rights reserved
Top photo: Regina, conducting rocky intertidal monitoring on San Francisco Bay

Dr. Andrew Gordus has a unique position, as he is the only staff toxicologist employed by CDFW outside of the department’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response. Based in Fresno, Andy focuses on the detection and effects of poisons as they relate to fish, wildlife and environmental health issues.

Andy was born and raised in rural Wisconsin where he developed a passion for the outdoors, fish and wildlife. He relocated to Southern California with his family at age 14. His passions led him to Humboldt State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Management and a master’s degree in Natural Resources Management. He earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Pathology from the UC Davis School of Medicine.

A 17-year CDFW employee, Andy has conducted pioneering research in the area of food safety and whether wildlife could possibly spread dangerous bacteria such as E.coli and Salmonella to farmed crops. He was among the first scientists in California to raise warning flags about dangerous toxicants and serious environmental damage resulting from illegal marijuana grows.

Let’s say you’re at a social event without any work colleagues around. How do you explain what you do for a living?

I tell them I am a toxicologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. My specialty is wildlife diseases and toxicology, and I primarily cover water quality and food safety, but I also have a background in waterfowl and wetland habitat management.

Who or what brought you to CDFW and what inspires you to stay?

Ever since I was a kid, I always had an interest in fish and wildlife so I always wanted to work in some sort of wildlife or natural resources agency. I started with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge and lived at Fish and Game housing at the Wister Unit. Back in those days, most of the biologists and managers were Humboldters so I had a lot in common with them. After I graduated from UC Davis, I worked for a private ecological consulting firm in Fresno and got to know the Fresno Fish and Gamers and they got to know me.

In the late 1990s, the department started to hire people above entry level, so I applied and Dale Mitchell hired me as an environmental scientist. And as they say, the rest is history. I get to do a lot of interesting and diverse projects, plus I’ve gotten to meet interesting people and developed both professional relationships and friendships over the years.

There’s been a lot of media and political attention lately on illegal marijuana grows and the damage they cause to wildlife and the environment. You sounded the alarm more than a decade ago. How did you become involved?

In 2004, some of our Central Valley wildlife areas and managed wetlands were required to join the state program that monitors pollutants in irrigated runoff. After the first annual report was released, I noticed dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) readings at certain locations in the watershed and began to wonder where in the heck that was coming from.

Not too long after that our wildlife area supervisor made a comment to me that our wardens had recently raided an illegal grow in the grasslands region and found DDT containers with labels in Spanish. That’s when it hit me – so that’s where it’s coming from. I went over and talked to then-Captain Nathaniel Arnold and Lt. Specialist Tony Spada and asked if they were finding illegal pesticides in the grows they were raiding. They couldn’t wait to fire up their computers and show me photographs of all the illegal chemicals with labels in Spanish. That was the beginning of my interest about this issue.

In 2012, Dr. Mourad Gabriel published his findings about Pacific fishers being poisoned by rodenticides from illegal grows. This verified what I felt all along – that these grows were causing significant impacts to our watersheds and wildlife. I now give presentations about the impacts to fish, wildlife and water quality and provide a short discussion about the potential harm to human health. I gave this presentation at the 2016 Annual Wildlife Disease Association Conference at Cornell University. During the banquet, a person from Australia approached me and told me that after listening to my talk, he realized he has an illegal grow on his property. This has become an international issue.

What’s the main message in your presentations?

If you are going to smoke pot, make sure it is organic.

Tell us about your food safety and wildlife research.

This all got started in the aftermath of the nationwide E.coli outbreak and scare in 2006 linked to contaminated lettuce and spinach. This was becoming a very serious issue with California produce growers pressured by the public to make sure their produce was safe to eat. The industry was blaming wildlife for contaminating its crops and calling on California growers to eliminate all wildlife and habitat from their farms. Farmers were taking the scorched-earth approach, eliminating riparian habitats and turning their land into moonscapes. This approach was being pushed nationwide, and we feared the country would no longer have any wildlife left if farmers were eliminating wildlife and habitat across the nation.

Working with farmers in the Central Valley and on the Central Coast for many years, I have learned that many of them do enjoy seeing wildlife and having wildlife on their farms. So these produce growers were more than happy to have me answer the question, once and for all, if wildlife was a contamination risk to their crops. Fortunately, we found wildlife is a very low contamination health risk. Our results helped get the Food and Drug Administration to include land stewardship and wildlife and habitat protections in its national food safety rules for growing leafy green vegetables.

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

There are a number of projects I would like to do. I’ve been wanting to collect water samples from the illegal cannabis grows throughout California, as well as from the plants themselves. The general public wants to know if there are any pesticides in their vegetables and fruit, but no one is asking about what poisons they are inhaling into their lungs.

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

There are three of us with the title Dr. Andrew Gordus. My oldest son, Andrew, is a professor in the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins University. A distant cousin Dr. Andrew M. Gordus is a professor at Old Dominion University in Virginia, and, then, of course, there’s myself. My daughter, Margarita, is also a scientist. She works for CDFW here in Fresno as a senior environmental scientist in the Timberland Conservation Program.