Featured Scientist

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.

Wildlife training with a mountain lion at CDFW’s Wildlife Investigations Lab outside of Sacramento.


John climbs redwoods at Hendy Woods State Park in Mendocino County.


Wildlife biologist by day, rock guitarist by night in the band Sticky’s Backyard.


John with wife, Trish, and daughters Phoenix (left) and Sequoia.


Mountain biker John near Lake Almanor.


Snowboarders’ expert runs have the best views

Wildlife biologist John Krause is a 17-year CDFW employee who serves Marin, Alameda and Contra Costa counties. In the heavily populated San Francisco Bay Area, human-wildlife issues often dominate his workday. But his professional pride and joy is the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve near Hayward. John has spent his career overseeing the restoration of 6,400 acres of commercial salt ponds to tidal marsh and other natural habitat while creating access and recreational opportunities for the public.

A native of Carmichael in Sacramento County, John holds a degree in terrestrial plant ecology from UC Davis.

Do you find it ironic that you are a wildlife biologist working in some of the most urbanized communities in the country?

Sure, at times. When I took this job back in 2001, I did not really know how much of the human dimension aspect of things I would be getting into. It’s a regular part of the job, dealing with the public about everything from “Where can I go hunt?” to “I’ve got a problem with a coyote in my backyard.”

How much of your time is spent dealing with human-wildlife conflicts?

It’s every day. A lot of it is depredation-related calls from the public – wild pigs, wild turkeys in the urban-wildlife interface, occasionally deer out in the vineyards causing property damage. There are regular calls about coyotes being perceived as a public safety risk, though coyotes are really more of a risk to domestic animals like cats, small dogs and backyard, free-ranging chickens. The number of these incidents is definitely increasing, primarily because we have open space immediately adjacent to these metropolitan areas. Many of these communities are tucked into the natural landscape so they are inextricably linked to the landscape.

Many people today just don’t have the background or understanding about the behavior of these wild critters. Our general message is to leave these critters be. But when wildlife becomes a nuisance, then it’s time to step up and make an effort to discourage that behavior. That might mean building a coop for your free-range chickens, hazing a coyote out of a neighborhood or thinking carefully about the kind of landscaping you are installing in your yard.

What prompted your interest in science and the outdoors?

I grew up on the American River. I had friends who lived right out there on the bluffs so as kids we were out there all the time biking around and hiking around, swimming in the river, going fishing.

I was a pre-med student originally. I thought I was going to go to professional school to be a dentist. My motivation as a kid was “I’ll be a dentist and I’ll be rich!” But I realized over time that wasn’t for me. I didn’t want to spend my life looking into people’s mouths. So I got into this career by thinking about what it was that I really cared about.

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

I was a biologist for Caltrans for two and a half years before I came to the department. I learned a lot at Caltrans – really useful stuff like reading plans and working with engineers that has served me well over the years with the wetland restoration work I do now. I was out on construction jobs in the Santa Cruz Mountains and there were all these issues coming up with listed species. It was great training. But ultimately, I wanted to work for a conservation agency instead of doing conservation work for a transportation agency.

This job was advertised and I was all over it. Counting deer and elk by helicopter or by driving out to remote areas to survey? Working in and managing wetlands for waterfowl and shorebirds or endangered mice? Counting rails by airboat? Yes, please! The work is really diverse, and I think that’s what keeps me so engaged. And I have this really cool project I get to work on – my legacy project, Eden Landing. I will hand it off to somebody else at some point and they will have a whole career finishing it off.

What is special about the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve?

It’s part of the largest wetlands restoration on the West Coast – 15,100 acres in the South Bay. It’s what I studied in college. Landscape change over time. We are restoring salt ponds to tidal marshes, keeping some managed ponds that birds have come to rely upon. It’s a 50-year project that started in 2003. I’m the guy on the ground working with all of our contractors and partners.

The water birds are the real stars of the show out there. They are the poster species for nature. We manage the ponds for the different seasons and bird species. I will go out and take a dry pond that has been set aside for snowy plover nesting in the spring, flood it up in late summer and watch the bugs come back. And a couple of weeks later the shorebirds show up and are taking advantage of it. And then later in the year we transition from shorebirds to ducks and we start flooding it up a little more for ducks. We’ve got shallower ponds for the dabblers and deeper water for the diving ducks.

Is there public access for birders and others at Eden Landing?

Absolutely. Public access is part of our mandate. We’ve got 4 miles of trails. We’ve got anglers out there. We’ve got kayaking and a kayak launch out there. I started the waterfowl hunting program there and we are just wrapping up our 14th waterfowl season. It’s a success in many ways.

What’s the story behind the waterfowl hunting program? It’s unique in that it is free, for one thing, and you allow hunting on some non-typical shoot days such as Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Hunters have to buy their license and state and federal duck stamps, but they don’t have to buy a lands pass for Eden Landing. San Francisco Bay has a long history and tradition of duck hunting and we wanted to continue that at Eden Landing. When Cargill owned the property, they leased out ponds and hunters built duck blinds and had duck hunting out there for decades. When CDFW took it over, we made it accessible to the public. We now host about 10 hunt days annually.

The South Bay federal wildlife refuges allow hunting on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. I wanted to provide more opportunities for hunters when those wildlife areas are closed so I added shoot days on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We get a lot of local hunters, and we see new hunters every year. Eden is getting pretty well-known in the hunting community, and our averages are pretty good for people coming out and getting birds – better than the wildlife areas and refuges a lot of the time. The hunters really appreciate that their dollars are supporting the restoration and enhancement of Bay-Delta wetlands.

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

My wife and I have two young girls, 13 and 11. I’m an outdoor sports person. I mountain bike all the time. I go hiking. I love snowboarding. I’ve been snowboarding since 1984 – back before snowboarding was even a thing. I love to travel. My wife and I have been all over the world and have visited countries in Europe, Central America and Africa. More recently, my family has traveled in America, Mexico and Canada.

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

I’m in a band. I play rhythm guitar and sing back-up vocals with friends I met in college. The band is called Sticky’s Backyard – Sticky was the nickname of a guy in Davis and we played our first gig in his backyard. That was 26 years ago, and we are still together. We play all original music. Jam rock is the best way I can describe it. We played the Lucasfilm employee holiday party in December. It’s a fun outlet – scientist by day, rocker by night. Sometimes those days and nights blend together.

John Krause photos
Top photo: John welcomes U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein to the South Bay’s salt ponds in 2010, where native habitat was being restored and public access opened for the first time.

Richard Brody is a Southern California native who grew up “a stone’s throw” from the CDFW project he now manages, the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve. Like many CDFW scientists, he took a circuitous route to working for the department, dabbling in early punk rock, owning an employment agency, home building and delivering large sailboats on the open ocean. Eventually he married, settled back into school and began a career in environmental science. Richard did his undergraduate work in water policy at Cal, and then went to graduate school at UCLA, studying Fluvial Geomorphology and Wetland Restoration. Today, he and his wife are raising two daughters in the open space of Topanga Canyon.

How did you come to CDFW?

After graduate school, I worked in the world of environmental consulting for over a decade. I was a wetland delineator and restoration specialist, and I got to know and highly respect the work CDFW was doing. In my mind, the holy grail of private restoration work was to one day manage a wetland reserve and have the time to concentrate on making a solid difference at one important location. Through my relationships at CDFW, I learned of the Ballona Land Manager position and was told that I would be an asset to CDFW. I was fortunate enough to be offered the position after a very competitive process.

What does the Region 5 lands program encompass?

The South Coast Region’s lands program manages coastal and inland properties from Santa Barbara County to the border of Mexico. These properties include maritime chaparral and sage-scrub communities, oak woodlands, grasslands, coastal bays, lagoons and estuaries. We manage these threatened habitats to protect them, but there are some passive recreation and educational uses allowed also. These vary from reserve to reserve.

What is Ballona and why is it important?

The Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve is the largest and last remaining opportunity for major coastal habitat restoration in Los Angeles County. It is located on the edge of one of the largest concrete jungles on the planet and also along the Pacific Flyway. Historically, this area provided a much larger stopover, resting and foraging area for migratory birds than is available today. There are corners of the Reserve that provide some estuarine and aquatic function, but only after years of coordination with our federal and local partners to restore some tidal flow. These areas are now a case study of what is possible and the immense potential this degraded Reserve offers. In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, the world’s largest man-made small craft harbor was dredged out right next to where the Reserve now sits. Dredging of this harbor, channelizing Ballona Creek and building the surrounding community all contributed to the reduction of the once approximately 2,000-acre wetland to less than 600 acres today. Very little of the remaining wetland has any describable function anymore. In fact, the Howard Hughes Corporation accepted more than 3 million cubic yards of fill from the marina dredging to be dumped in the former wetlands.

This is the biggest challenge ahead of us – getting the Reserve back down to sea level and reconnecting Ballona Creek with its floodplain so the land can function as a coastal wetlands again. Restoring Ballona will offer hundreds of now-unavailable acres to wetland-dependent species that have been displaced all along our coastline and are now clinging to existence in the Los Angeles area. I tell my kids that the Once-ler came through Ballona and left a mess and that it is my job to help make the pond wet again and bring back the Swomee-Swans and the Humming-Fish. (The Once-ler is the narrator and a character in The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.)

If you had unlimited money for Ballona what would you do?

I would fast-track the restoration, acquire all other nearby available land for more open space and build a world-class visitor and research center at the Reserve.

What is your vision for Ballona?

Aside from the obvious restoration effort, Ballona has always been a politically charged place of many factions and competing interests. One of my top priorities is bringing people closer together here. The overwhelming majority of us have the same goal in mind – to make this a special place along the California coast. We don’t see eye-to-eye on every issue, but we have already made progress in communication. That’s the best place to start.

What species are documented at Ballona and what do we think will come there (or return) when the restoration is complete?

We currently have three species that are listed as threatened and/or endangered, as well as 11 species of special concern. This is compared to 18 threatened and endangered species and nearly 100 species of special concern that are documented to have once existed at Ballona, or are still in the area but have insufficient habitat to return. I am the eternal optimist who feels that if we get this restoration off the ground, we have the potential for most, if not all, of these species to be documented here again.

The El Segundo blue butterfly (Euphilotes battoides allyni) is federally endangered and listed by the state as critically imperiled. It’s the cutest little butterfly on the planet. It used to be primarily restricted to the LAX dunes about five miles away, but the Friends of Ballona worked tirelessly over the last decade clearing iceplant and planting seacliff buckwheat (Eriogonum parvifolium). This is the only host plant for this species that it uses in all of its life stages. Once it was planted, the butterflies came. The highest count we have seen recently was more than 500 butterflies. This is a huge success story and testament to how successful restoration can be at Ballona. Every summer, the Friends hold a butterfly festival in honor of all their hard and successful work.

In addition to the El Segundo Blue Butterfly, other threatened and endangered species breeding or overwintering at Ballona now include the Belding’s savannah sparrow and the least Bell’s Vireo. Our species of special concern include the legless lizard, burrowing owl and Orcutt’s pincushion, among others. We would like to someday reintroduce Ventura marsh milkvetch, a plant species formally thought to be extinct.

What would you tell a high school student who wants to study environmental science?

Choose a field that suits your lifestyle. I once had a biology instructor tell me that if you’re planning your field of research, why not study the thoracic region of tropical lobster? You’ll have to dive all day in the Maldives and bring home lobster tails every day. That’s a metaphor, but you get my meaning. Now you know why I specialize in coastal wetlands. Surfing and shorebirds, what more could a guy ask for?

Any final thoughts?

What I love most about Ballona is people’s passion and Ballona’s potential. To have this tiny little bit of tidal wetlands available to us, and the wildlife species that are here is an incredible opportunity.

Many people have told me that they can feel their blood pressure actually go down when they leave the concrete jungle, get off the 90 freeway, head down Culver Boulevard and see the open space of Ballona. That simple example shows how important open space is here in Los Angeles County. I often use the functions and values test here. Functions are measurable – we can measure water quality, biodiversity or habitat. But values are not as tangible. Ballona has an intrinsic value, and it brings a sense of well-being that is almost lost in coastal Los Angeles.