Wildlife Ecologist/Herpetologist at ICF International and Vice President Save the Snakes

Eric Stitt grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, then later Vacaville, California, where his daily after-school activities were centered around chasing snakes and lizards through grasslands and oaks. A Certified Wildlife Biologist ® , he has been a TWS Western Section member since the late 1990’s. He is currently Senior Biologist/Herpetologist at ICF International, and Vice President of Save The Snakes. Mr. Stitt is a member of the Western Section Conservation Affairs Committee, and Board Member of the TWS Biological Diversity Working Group, and considers himself a conservation-driven wildlife ecologist, with particular interests in the population and community biology, habitat relations, and biogeography of amphibians and reptiles. Independent research projects include monitoring and ecology of northern leopard frogs and using technology to document the presence of western spadefoot in the northern Sacramento area. He provides Venomous Reptile Safety Trainings through Save The Snakes and works with numerous endangered and threatened species including desert tortoises, California’s ranid frogs, California tiger salamander, salt-marsh harvest mouse, Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard, and northern California vernal pool species. In his free time, he plays music (drums) in numerous bands around the Central Valley and northern foothills and rehearses in his music studio: a repurposed 1960’s area fallout shelter.

Conservation Program Manager working with San Diego Zoo Alliance

Colleen Wisinski is the Conservation Program Manager for the BurrowingOwl Recovery Program at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, where she has worked for the past 14 years. Colleen is responsible for overseeing the field team, managing and analyzing data, and working with colleagues to make recommendations about management of the species to local land and wildlife managers. As part of this work, she has placed backpack transmitters on ~100 burrowing owls. Colleen earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay, and her master’s degree in Fish and Wildlife Management from Montana State University in Bozeman, where she examined survival and habitat use of greater sage-grouse in southwestern Montana (this included attaching necklace-style transmitters to adults). Colleen has also worked as a wildlife rehabilitator where she trained several raptors for educational purposes, and as a whooping crane tracker where she used radio and satellite telemetry to monitor a reintroduced population of cranes. She has been a member of The Wildlife Society since college and has served the Western Section and Southern California Chapter in multiple capacities since 2015. Colleen loves that she gets to work outdoors and be creative to figure out how to answer research questions in the field. Her love for animals and nature grew from her time spent outdoors in the North Woods of Wisconsin.

Environmental Scientist working with California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW)

Stacey graduated from CSU Channel Islands with a Biology degree and a minor in Environmental Science. Stacey started her career in outdoor education and worked across the state of California, teaching middle school and high schoolers about ecology while also leading nature hikes. Stacey then started a Scientific Aid position at the CDFW doing salmon carcass surveys and a zodiac trawl. Next, Stacey  worked for the U.S. Forest Service, as a Fisheries Technician, backpacking in high mountain streams in South Lake Tahoe to remove invasive trout species. After that Stacey received a full time position at CDFW in the Fisheries Department as an Environmental Scientist doing drought related research in the Sacramento River.  Stacey then moved into more regulatory roles and started working at the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, regulating point source pollution. Now Stacey currently works in the Cutting the Green Tape department of CDFW, writing expediated restoration permits for restoration projects. Stacey is also currently finishing up a master’s degree from CSU Chico in Hydrology.

Outside of work, Stacey enjoys spending time in the outdoors (hiking, backpacking, climbing, gardening) and is currently trying to visit every national park in the U.S.