Daniel Gaines

I grew up 30 miles North of Houston in Kingwood, Texas.As a child I spent most of my free time outdoors hunting or fishing for whatever was in season.  After high school I attended Tarleton State University and earned a degree in Biology before deciding to continue my education at Texas Tech University in the field of Fish Biology.

After Graduating with a M.S. in 2008, I took a Bio-tech fisheries position with the National Park Service at Death Valley National Park, stationed in Pahrump, Nevada.  After a year I was able to compete and accept a position in the same duty station as the Park’s Fish Biologist.  I worked with five species of desert pupfish at Death Valley, but spent the vast majority of my time on the critically endangered Devils Hole Pupfish.  Their Crystal clear cavern and cave environment and the need for visual monitoring rejuvenated my love of diving which I had been away from since I was first certified as a child.  I was able to establish a dive program at the Park level and continue diver population monitoring that now has 48 years of biannual population data. 

While living in southern Nevada, My wife and I had two sons, 362 days apart in age and a year and a half later found out she was pregnant with our third (a daughter).  **My wife is a superstar and my rock and deserves more credit than I can give.**  At this point in 2014, I accepted a position back in Texas as a Natural Resource Specialist with the US Army Corps of Engineers at Whitney Lake.  I hated to leave my Biologist job but, with our growing family, we opted to move back closer to both of our families.  The Corps office at Lake Whitney was a wonderful place and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, but I missed the biology and fisheries work.  

In late 2016 I took a Fish Biologist position at Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery.  I was brought on initially for my experience in fisheries and with endangered small bodied fish, but was soon given the opportunity to help establish a native freshwater mussel culture program at the hatchery.  I have participated in channel catfish culture throughout my USFWS employment and now have over seven years of on the job mussel and Channel catfish culture experience at Inks Dam NFH.