Nick Gerda
is an accountability reporter who has covered local government in Southern California for more than a decade.
Published April 17, 2024 5:00 AM
Rhiannon Do in a YouTube video posted in August 2021 by the Steinberg Institute, a mental health policy advocacy group, where she was a legislative intern.
The backstory: Rhiannon Do is the 22-year-old daughter of O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do. LAist uncovered that he directed more than $13 million to a nonprofit that records show Rhiannon Do helped lead over the last two years. The vast majority of the money was directed outside of the public’s view and did not appear on public agendas. Andrew Do did not publicly disclose his family ties before awarding the funds.
What she said: In a brief email exchange with LAist, Rhiannon Do said her role was limited to mental health services and a different meals program from the one under scrutiny. She said she was not a director or officer of the overall nonprofit, and never had any role in its finances. She also says she no longer works for Viet America Society. The comments were her first public statements since LAist’s investigation began in November.
Records show otherwise: LAist has obtained nine different public records that show her in top-level leadership positions at the nonprofit during the timeframe under scrutiny, including president, officer and director. Some were signed by Rhiannon Do herself. In her replies to LAist, she didn’t explain those records after LAist asked about them.
Viet America Society’s lawyer cites “sloppiness” and negligence": There [were] a lot of things that were screwed up,” the nonprofit's attorney said when asked about the documents showing Rhiannon Do leading the group. “It doesn’t make them true,” he said. “It just makes them negligent.”
Do previously did not respond to LAist, but answered some questions by email early this month. She told LAist: “It has been amply shown that I was never an officer or director for VAS.”
She did not provide information showing that was the case.
Do did not answer follow-up questions asking how she explains those records.
Do is a second year law student at UC Irvine, and the daughter of O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do and Cheri Pham, the assistant presiding judge of O.C. Superior Court.
The responses to LAist — signed “Rhiannon Do” — were from an email address that, according to records LAist obtained from the county, Rhiannon Do used to communicate with county staff. In one of those emails, from February 2022, Rhiannon Do represented herself as Viet America Society’s executive director.
The funding being questioned by county staff was tied to COVID-relief funded meals earmarked for residents in need during the pandemic.
Rhiannon Do says her role was limited
Rhiannon Do said that at Viet America Society she worked on mental health services — and was not connected to millions in coronavirus relief dollars that her father directed to the group.
Catch up on the investigation
In November 2023, LAist began investigating how millions in public taxpayer dollars were spent. In total, LAist has uncovered over $13 million in public money that went to a little-known nonprofit that records state was led on and off by Rhiannon Do, the now 22-year-old daughter of O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do. Most of that money was directed to the group by Supervisor Do outside of the public’s view and never appeared on public meeting agendas. He did not publicly disclose his family ties.
Much of the known funding came from federal coronavirus relief money.
Since we started reporting, we’ve also uncovered the group is nearly two years overdue in completing a required audit into whether the meal funds were spent appropriately. A second required audit is 10-months overdue.
And we found the amount of taxpayer money directed to the nonprofit was much larger than initially known. It totals at least $13.5 million in county funding — tallied from government records obtained and published by LAist.
After our reporting, O.C. officials wrote demand letters to the nonprofit saying millions in funding were unaccounted for. They warned it could be forced to repay the funds.
And, last month, we found the nonprofit missed a deadline set by county officials to provide proof about how funding for meals were spent.
“I have worked for the past 3 years to help them stand up a mental health clinic, which was the first of its kind for the Vietnamese American community in Orange County,” she wrote.
The clinic — Warner Wellness Center — received authorizations for up to $3.1 million in county-funded subcontracts, which her father voted to fund without publicly disclosing his close family connection.
County records show Rhiannon Do signed $375,000 of those subcontracts as president of Viet America Society, which does business under the Warner Wellness name. Amid questions about her qualifications to lead a mental health clinic, Rhiannon Do’s father has pointed to her undergraduate internship working on mental health legislation at the Steinberg Institute as her experience.
As for her role at Viet America Society, Rhiannon Do wrote to LAist that she “was later hired to work on a proposal for the Elderly Nutrition Program, a food service program for seniors, which was completely unrelated to Covid and any Covid funding.”
“I was never involved in any of the Covid meal gap programs or have ever played any role in the back office or financial side of VAS,” she added.
Millions have gone unaccounted for
At Supervisor Do’s direction, Viet America Society has received more than $9 million from the county to feed needy residents, plus $1 million to build a Vietnam War memorial. He also joined votes to fund up to $3.1 million in mental health subcontracts for the group, all without disclosing his close family connection.
Supervisor Do has not responded to multiple interview requests from LAist over the past six months. In a November interview with another news outlet, he defended his decisions to award money to his daughter’s group without public disclosure, saying he wasn’t required to disclose his family connection.
At issue, as county officials warned in a series of letters in February: the group has failed to document what happened with the first year-and-a-half of meal funding it directly received from the county, totaling $2.7 million in 2021 and the first half of 2022.
County officials set mid-March deadlines for Viet America Society to provide long overdue proof of how that money was used. The nonprofit missed the first deadline, which covered funding for the first half of 2021.
Then, the day after the March 14 deadline, a lawyer for the group said it was working to provide the county what it’s looking for.
Nearly a month later, the group has not yet provided any more documents, according to county spokesperson Jennifer Ayari. She responded via email late last week to questions from LAist.
The county’s extended deadline for Viet America Society to submit overdue documents is now April 24 at 5 p.m., Ayari wrote.
Those documents include accounting records, a list of who received meals, the dates meals were delivered, delivery addresses and contact info for the people who received meals.
Bridgecreek Plaza strip mall, which has offices for Viet America Society and Warner Wellness in Huntington Beach.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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The timeframe for the meals funding that’s under scrutiny overlaps with Rhiannon Do representing herself as the nonprofit’s executive director, in the February 2022 email to a county executive.
What records show about Rhiannon Do's role
LAist has obtained nine different public records listing Rhiannon Do as one of the group’s top leaders, including instances of her signatures as VAS’s president on county-funded subcontracts. Among the records:
The nonprofit’s original public tax filing for 2022, which marked Rhiannon Do as the only officer and only director during calendar year 2022. It states it was signed under penalty of perjury in October 2023 by Peter Pham, the group’s founder.
October 2023 board meeting minutes for Viet America Society, which showed Rhiannon Do as one of the group’s three directors and officers, and participating in decisions at the meeting. They show her joining a vote with the two other directors — Peter Pham and Dinh Mai – in authorizing Pham and Mai to sign checks from the nonprofit’s bank account.
Rhiannon Do signed as Viet America Society’s president on two county-fundedsubcontracts for mental health outreach services, totaling $375,000.
In her recent email exchange with LAist, Rhiannon Do said she’s parted ways with Viet America Society.
“I am also no longer with VAS or the Warner Wellness Center,” she said, referring to the name the nonprofit has used for its mental health work.
She didn’t respond to a follow-up email asking why she left.
In February, Viet America Society was informed it would no longer be allowed to perform its county-funded mental health work. That work was funded through subcontracts with the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community (OCAPICA) and the OC chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI OC).
Nonprofit attorney: ‘A lot of things that were screwed up’
In a phone interview with LAist this week, Sterling Scott Winchell, Viet America Society’s lawyer, told LAist that Rhiannon Do “was basically just a caseworker.” He attributed the paper trail showing otherwise to “sloppiness” and negligence.
“Contracts were written with the wrong name on them. She never held that title. Things happen,” Winchell said last week in his first interview with LAist.
“I can speculate for you,” he added. “There was a previous entity, and she may have been an officer in that before the funding started. But I don’t know why the contracts and so forth were drafted that way. I think it was just sloppiness."
He didn’t specify what that entity was. But Rhiannon Do and two other VAS leaders were listed as officers starting in mid 2021 for a private company — Behavioral Health Solutions — that operated under the Warner Wellness name before Viet America Society took on the name in late 2022, according to state and county registration records.
Many of the records showing Rhiannon Do in leadership at Viet America Society — including the subcontracts and directors meeting minutes — are dated many months after Behavioral Health Solutions informed the state in early January 2023 that it had shut down.
LAist asked Winchell about the paper trail showing Rhiannon Do in top leadership positions at the group, including president, vice president, director and officer.
“Yeah, I would agree with you. There [were] a lot of things that were screwed up. It doesn’t make them true, it just makes them negligent,” Winchell said.
Winchell was Supervisor Do’s appointee to the county ethics commission from 2018 to 2023. He told the county he was hired in late February to represent the nonprofit.
Winchell recently told the OC Register that the nonprofit has refiled its 2022 tax filing without Rhiannon Do’s name as an officer. An amended version of the filing, marked as received by the state Attorney General’s charity registry on March 25, no longer lists her as an officer. It has a note at the end stating it was amended to “Remove Rhiannon Do out” and that “She is not an officer of Viet America Society.”
Attorney also says answers will come in audit
Winchell said the county’s questions would be straightened out in an upcoming audit commissioned by the nonprofit. That audit was required under its county contract, and is nearly two years overdue.
In its demand letters in February, the county warned that it could make the nonprofit repay the money if it doesn’t prove what happened with it.
Winchell said the nonprofit and the county are working closely.
“We’re working together toward a common goal. Our success is their success. It’s not adversarial,” he said. “I understand that controversy gets clicks. But there’s no adversarial relationship between these parties. We’re working together."
“They fell behind on some administrative issues, so they hired me,” he added of the nonprofit.
Winchell said the audit will provide answers about how the money was spent.
Asked if all of the dollars provided to the group for meals went to providing meals, Winchell said: “That’s my understanding.”
“If it’s not the case, the audit will reveal that,” he continued. “My understanding is that all the money — whatever money’s been used, has gone to where it should go.”
Winchell said he thinks the audit will be completed by the end of June.
A county spokesperson confirmed Tuesday that the county is currently working with Viet America Society on compliance requirements.
In her emailed responses to LAist, Rhiannon Do said there was nothing improper about how Viet America Society’s funding was used.
The “insinuation that there was something untoward with the use of VAS funds is fabricated” and a “false narrative,” wrote Do.
In a follow-up email, she said she never “played any role in the back office or financial side of VAS.”
How to watchdog local government
One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention.
Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.
Early every Saturday for the last three and a half years, William Campbell, 61, leaves his Silver Lake home to be at the Angels Flight station for the first ride at 6:45 a.m.
Why it matters: Campbell is one of a team of operators behind the proverbial wheel of the two near-identical funiculars — named Olivet and Sinai — that go up and down a 33% angle slope from Hill Street to Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles.
The backstory: Campbell is also a superfan and has been researching the Bunker Hill funicular's 124-year history.
Early every Saturday for the last three and a half years, William Campbell, 61, leaves his Silver Lake home to be at the Angels Flight station for the first ride at 6:45 a.m.
Campbell is one of a team of operators behind the proverbial wheel of the two near-identical funiculars — named Olivet and Sinai — that go up and down a 33% angle slope from Hill Street to Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles.
“You’re a part of living history,” said Campbell, who is dressed in an orange and black waistcoat and bow tie, and wears a bowler hat with a monarch butterfly on top. There’s a reason for that, he said mysteriously.
Angels Flight on Bunker Hill.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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Today, I am the first rider. Soon after, I am joined by a family visiting from Texas.
“I was just looking at a local tourist place, and I just saw this small, cute railway,” said Michael Nguyen, who was alongside his mother and sister. “I was like, oh, this looks interesting. And I saw that you can actually go on it. I was like, OK, that’s pretty dope.”
Masterminded by lawyer, politician and engineer Col. James Ward Eddy, the Angels Flight “hillevator” opened on New Year’s Eve 1901 as a way for people to travel up and down Bunker Hill, which was then the place where the city’s wealthy population lived.
The journey took them down to the streets and stores below and from 1917, Grand Central Market, with the first passengers paying just a penny fare for what was billed as the “shortest railway in America,” traveling just 298 feet.
When he’s not working his weekday full-time day job investigating animal cruelty and abuse, Campbell spends his spare time looking through online newspaper archives for any information about Angels Flight.
Angels Flight Railway.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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Angels Flight Railway.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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Originally located by the 3rd Street Tunnel — at the end of the block from where it is now — the train has been through several changes, as has Bunker Hill itself.
“All the wealthy people moved to Beverly Hills, and Brentwood, and Bel Air, and beyond. And all their wonderful Victorian mansions were turned into boarding houses, and it attracted a lower income, more diverse population, which resulted in blight and crime — at least according to the city,” Campbell said of Bunker Hill's transformation.
City officials authorized Bunker Hill to be all but razed in the 1950s and '60s, and Angels Flight was put into what was promised to be temporary storage for a year or two, despite protests from singer Peggy Lee and others.
Angels Flight Railway 351 S. Hill St., Los Angeles Daily, 6:45 a.m. to 10 p.m. A round-trip ticket is $3, which is orange and has a souvenir portion. A one-way trip is $1.75 or $1 for TAP cardholders. William Campbell works there every Saturday and will happily talk to you if he can. You can find out more about Campbell's wildlife interests and win a prize in Angels Flight quizzes via Instagram.
The year was 1969. And it took nearly three decades for its return. Angels Flight welcomed passengers again in 1996 to its current location after test runs were made with cases of beer and soft drinks weighing 9,000 pounds. The cable cars were rebuilt exactly as before, but with modern safety requirements, such as Sinai having wheelchair space.
A 2001 accident in which one person died and seven were injured saw another long closure until 2010, and there was a derailment in 2014, which saw another short shuttering. But Angels Flight has been running ever since 2017, save the odd mechanical problem.
William Campbell.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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Angels Flight keepsakes made by William Campbell for riders to take.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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Campbell describes himself as a cheerleader for Angels Flight, and you can easily see why. During his shift he pins up a 1904 photo of the city’s landscape taken from an 80-foot-high observation tower at the original location, so people can compare it to the skyscraper skyline of today.
“At one time you could see all the way to Catalina,” he noted.
There is also a display about near-forgotten Bunker Hill folk artist Marcel Cavalla, and Campbell gives away Angels Flight bookmarks, stickers and maps, all of which he researches, designs and prints out of his own pocket.
One of his projects, old advertisements from 1901 to the 1940s, is displayed in the panels above the seats, and was installed a couple of months ago.
Interior of Angels Flight, showcasing old advertisements from 1901 to the 1940s that Campbell installed.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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One of the vintage ads for Catalina Carrier-Pigeon Service.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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There's everything from old Market Basket supermarket ads, to Barbara Stanwyck shilling for Lux toilet soap, to a standard power mower from John Bean manufacturing, to one for the Catalina Carrier Pigeon Service, which operated from 1894 to 1902, taking messages from Avalon to Bunker Hill.
And the monarch butterfly on his hat? That’s related to his Angels Flight “holy grail,” the one question he can’t definitively answer: why were they painted orange and black?
With that, Campbell grabs his binoculars and sees there are passengers waiting for a ride up, so I get into Olivet and wave goodbye as I travel down to Hill Street.
Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published May 23, 2026 5:00 AM
The group Neighbors Helping Neighbors helps Altadena fire survivors clear weeds from burnt lots.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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Topline:
A new group called Neighbors Helping Neighbors has been helping Eaton Fire survivors clear burnt lots of overgrown weeds.
Why now: The volunteering effort is not just to tidy things up – but to clear lots of fire fuels as the region enters fire season.
Backstory: The group is founded by Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines, who grew up in Altadena and whose parents and sister all lost homes in the fire.
Read on ... to learn more about the group and how you can help.
A group called Neighbors Helping Neighbors has been clearing overgrown weeds for free on fire survivors' empty lots in Altadena.
They’ve finished 10 with many more to go. They’re keeping at it not just to keep things tidy, but to avert another disaster as the region enters fire season — and their efforts are spreading. More than 200 homeowners have signed up, after hearing about the group from its Facebook page and through word of mouth.
“I'm 5 feet 2 inches tall, but there were weeds 6 and 8 feet tall,” said Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines, the ringleader. She is also a co-founder of Altadena Talks Foundation, a nonprofit started in the wake of the Eaton Fire.
Bailey-Raines lives in San Dimas but grew up in Altadena. Her parents and sister all lost their homes in the Eaton Fire.
“I went to my parents' lot one day,” she said. “I loaded up the back of my car with my lawnmower, my blower, my rake, because I wanted to make sure their lot was cleaned up.”
It took seven hours, but she figured all that overgrown vegetation can't be good for Altadena with the fire season just around the corner.
And just like that, the idea for Neighbors Helping Neighbors was born.
Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines, founder of Neighbors Helping Neighbors.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines at one of the cleared lots.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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The very first lot, just south in Pasadena, was cleared in mid-April. Bailey-Raines said the property was getting notices from the city to clear the lot or face escalating fines. Pasadena conducts brush clearance inspections every spring and summer.
Toni said the family had moved to Mississippi after the Eaton Fire.
“You lost everything, and then somebody's gonna tell you they're gonna give you a fine because you have weeds on your lot and you're not even here to see that?” Bailey-Raines said.
That day, she rounded up a group of nine people, including her son and his friend. A neighbor across the street was suspicious at first, but eventually told her, "You have me for about an hour." He stayed for two.
The job took less than four hours.
A growing movement
On May 13, dozens of volunteers showed up in Altadena to clear seven lots in one morning.
One of them — a 14,000-square-foot lot — belongs to Sarkis Aleksanian and his family. He had reached out to Bailey-Raines in late April, after learning about the group from a neighborhood WhatsApp chat.
“I was looking into cleaning up the lot and really daunted by the prospect,” he said. “I was worried that the lawn would dry up and be a problem.”
Aleksanian and his wife were on hand to help out. It’s the one thing that Bailey-Raines requires — for the homeowners to be there.
“I've asked them that if they're able-bodied to be here and help,” she said. “You're here. You're encouraging people, and you're helping on your lot. [Sarkis] was doing everything from weed-eater, to chainsaw, to whatever, and that's what it's about.”
This 14,000-square-foot lot in Altadena was cleaned up in less than two hours on a recently Saturday.
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Fiona Ng
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“It was just remarkable, I tell you,” Aleksanian said. He said he recognized some of the volunteers that morning — folks he sees in the community.
And he did encounter someone he knew — a high school acquaintance from years back. “It's neighbors helping neighbors, just like she called it, you know?” Aleksanian said.
His lot was finished in 90 minutes.
More is needed
With a growing waitlist, what is needed are people and equipment — from gloves and trash bags to the hardware.
“I have six brush cutters and two chainsaws and a couple trimmers, but I need, like, triple that at least,” she said.
Same goes for rechargeable batteries that power these tools — which Bailey-Raines juices up with generators they bring on-site.
“My dream is one Saturday morning to have 500 people and that we clear a whole street, a whole block — so that this list of 200 can go down, and as others hear about it, they get on it, and we as a community do this as neighbors to help one another,” she said.
Keep up with LAist.
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Matthew Ballinger
is the senior editor for climate and environment coverage at LAist.
Published May 22, 2026 6:42 PM
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge.
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NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Topline:
NASA plans to open the contract to manage the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge to a competitive bidding process, according to a memo the lab released Friday.
The backstory: Since NASA was established in 1958, Caltech has managed JPL for the federal space agency "through a contractual relationship that has been regularly reviewed and renewed," according to Friday's memo. NASA began its regular process of evaluating the contract last year.
Why it matters: JPL has been through several rounds of layoffsin recent years. The lab and the university are leaders in civilian space science, with missions that have sent spacecraft into Earth orbit, to Mars and as far from Earth as any man-made object. The lab is also a major employer in the region and hosts massive classes of interns from around the world. The news about the contract was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, which said opening the contract to bidding is a first in JPL's history.
Why now: NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in "a long letter discussing organizational changes" to staffers Friday that the space agency intends to issue a request for proposals for management of JPL. "This process will take several years, and I do not anticipate it having any impact on the projects underway or the location of the facilities," Isaacman wrote. "It does, however, provide an opportunity to evaluate management costs, overhead burdens and ideally find ways to get after the science faster and more affordably."
What's next: Caltech's contract runs through the end of September 2028. "This announcement comes as no surprise," Caltech's president and JPL's director wrote to staffers Friday. "Caltech is well prepared with a team established last summer to ensure we are positioned for success, and we will respond to the request for proposal (RFP) once released."
Erin Stone
covers climate and environmental issues in Southern California.
Published May 22, 2026 4:21 PM
A recently released juvenile southwestern pond turtle swims in the San Gabriel River in the Angeles National Forest.
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Ken Bohn
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Courtesy San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
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Topline:
There’s a day for everything, and Saturday is World Turtle Day. This is the story of how humans helped a vulnerable native California turtle.
The backstory: Southwestern pond turtles in the San Gabriel mountains were almost wiped out by the Bobcat Fire in 2020. But biologists rescued 11 adults that were held at the San Diego Zoo until 2024, when they were released.
The baby boom: But then something happened that scientists didn't expect: "One baby, two baby, three baby, four baby. Fifteen babies later," is how a wildlife care manager at the zoo described it. Yes, the rescued turtles had laid eggs in their temporary home, and the hatchlings were emerging.
A new generation: Once they'd grown a bit, the zoo released the young turtles into San Gabriel River where they belong in April.
Read on ... for more about this conservation success story.
After fires and floods, Southern California’s only remaining native freshwater turtle recently got a boost.
Just last month, 15 southwestern pond turtle hatchlings were released into the San Gabriel River — a major milestone in an effort to restore the vulnerable turtle population.
But this wasn’t a typical raise-and-release scenario.
These turtles’ parents went on a harrowing journey before they were born.
The fire eventually scorched more than 180 square miles — mostly forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. For comparison, the 2025 Eaton Fire burned about 22 square miles.
Lights from a fire truck illuminate firefighters working the Bobcat Fire in September 2021.
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Frederic J. Brown
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Getty Images
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As the Bobcat Fire spread, biologists grew worried. The fire was burning in the West Fork of the San Gabriel River, a biodiversity hotspot and refuge for bears and mountain lions, the federally protected Santa Ana sucker fish and the mountain yellow-legged frog.
It’s also home to the largest remaining — and possibly only — population of southwestern pond turtles in the entire watershed. Their exact numbers aren’t known, but it’s likely less than 200.
What is a southwestern pond turtle?
The small, shy turtles grow to about 8 inches and range from Baja California to just south of the San Francisco Bay. They spend most of their lives in streams, rivers, lakes and other watery environments. They primarily eat small insects and plant matter.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife lists them as a Species of Special Concern, and they're being considered for federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.
“Because this hadn’t burned in decades and decades and decades, there was big concern about debris flows,” said Robert Fisher, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
Scientists hoped the turtles would be able to ride out the fire itself by staying in the water, but any rain after would likely lead to a deluge of mud, trees and other burned materials. That would be akin to an avalanche for the turtles in the river, and it had the potential to wipe out the entire population.
Once the flames died down, Fisher and a team of biologists, in partnership with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and U.S. Forest Service, trekked to the home of the pond turtles.
“It was a moonscape,” Fisher said.
They waded through ashy, murky waters, eventually collecting 11 adult turtles.
World Turtle Day’s SoCal cred
There’s a day for everything these days, but World Turtle Day (May 23) has surprisingly local roots.
Susan Tellem and her late husband, Marshall Thompson, coined the day in 2000 after founding a turtle and tortoise rescue 10 years earlier at their home in Malibu.
“When I first started helping turtles, there were hardly people helping the needs of turtles,” Tellem told LAist. “We decided to help educate people internationally so that turtles can live a longer and happier life.”
A temporary home and 15 surprises
The turtles were taken to the San Diego Zoo, where the plan was to hold them until their mountain habitat recovered enough for them to return.
By 2024, the San Gabriel Mountains were looking far better — biologists even found some pond turtles that survived major debris flows.
But right before the turtles were set to go back home, scientists got a surprise.
“Just before we were getting to release, we found a baby turtle, which is amazing,” said Brandon Scott, wildlife care manager of herpetology and ichthyology at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. “You don't know how long it's going to take to restart that process of them actually being able to breed, with the stress and it's a new habitat.”
A juvenile southwestern pond turtle is weighed before being released to the wild.
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Ken Bohn
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Courtesy San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
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The turtles and the new baby were all returned to their home in the San Gabriels. But then came another surprise. And another.
“We just continually, every day, started finding a baby in that habitat,” said Scott.
Female southwestern pond turtles lay and bury their eggs in late spring or early summer. Juveniles emerge months later, only about the size of a quarter.
Fifteen babies later, conservation staff were shocked and pleased.
Their goal for the 11 rescued turtles was to make sure they could thrive before being released back into their habitat. “But in the process,” Scott said, “yes, we made it comfortable enough for them to breed.”
A hopeful release
The new generation of southwestern pond turtles was released in April near the spot their parents were rescued from in the San Gabriel River.
Such rescues of vulnerable wildlife are becoming increasingly common in the face of more catastrophic fires. All but two of the biggest fires in recorded history have been in the last 20 years.
Fisher said a similar rescue of pond turtles had occurred only once before, after the 2009 Station Fire in the San Gabriels. That time, the turtles were quickly returned to their habitat.
A staff member of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance releases a juvenile southwestern pond turtle into the San Gabriel River.
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Ken Bohn
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Courtesy San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
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That rescue, in part, inspired the U.S. Geological Survey to work with the San Diego Zoo to build a conservation habitat for southwestern pond turtles nearly two decades ago. And the Bobcat Fire became the first time it was used for wild rescues, Fisher said.
Ironically, the Bobcat Fire could eventually help the local population, Fisher said.
“We’ve known about [the population] for decades, but it’s not really thriving,” he said. “So this helped give it a head start. And because the fire was so intense, it opened up a lot of habitat.”
With less tree canopy and more sunlight, the cold-blooded reptiles could thrive in warmer waters and on sunnier rocks.
Threats to southwestern pond turtles
Southwestern pond turtles have lived here for millennia, but invasive species and habitat destruction have nearly wiped them out. They’re currently being considered for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Nonnative turtles — such as red-eared sliders, many of which are abandoned pets — are outcompeting them in their habitats. And native pond turtle hatchlings are easy prey for invasive animals such as bullfrogs and crayfish.
On top of that, pollution in our atmosphere is driving longer, hotter droughts, which dries out the streams and rivers where they live. Worsening “weather whiplash” means more dangerous mudflows after fires, which can wipe out entire aquatic animal populations.
But the new generation is key.
“Because the site was so forested and hadn’t burned in so long, we don’t think they were having good success at breeding,” Fisher said. “Now we think we’ve really enhanced the population by putting more animals out there, especially young animals.”
Scott and Fisher said the saga has inspired preliminary conversations about formalizing breeding efforts to support the population. The little turtles' myriad threats have yet to let up, so they’ll likely need more help in the future.
But at the moment, there’s a little more hope — at least 16 hatchlings and 11 adults' worth of hope, to be exact — for California’s only native freshwater turtle.
