Katherine Ralls

Katherine is a Senior Research Zoologist Emerita with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute at the National Zoological Park. She has also been a Research Associate with the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz since 2004. Katherine has long had broad interests in the behavioral ecology, genetics, and conservation of mammals, both terrestrial and marine. Since 1980, she has been most concerned with conservation biology, especially the genetic problems of small captive and wild populations such as California Condors, and field studies of threatened and endangered mammals, including sea otters, San Joaquin kit foxes, and island foxes. Her practical experience with the conservation problems of a variety of endangered species has led to interest in developing noninvasive techniques for studying these species as well as the development of decision-making tools and processes to achieve better policy and management decisions.