LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — In the wake of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service saying it will not grant an emergency Endangered Species Act listing for the Clear Lake hitch, the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians voiced its disappointment with the decision.
On Tuesday, Fish and Wildlife announced that it wouldn’t give the listing, which the California Fish and Game Commission, Lake County’s tribes and the Center for Biological Diversity asked for the agency to do last year.
The hitch, a fish native to Clear Lake, is known as the “chi” to Lake County’s tribes, for whom it has had an important cultural role due to being a primary food source historically.
In recent years, observers have noted a marked decline in hitch population, and that information — along with advocacy from Big Valley and other local tribes — led to the Board of Supervisors declaring a Clear Lake hitch emergency in February.
Fish and Wildlife’s Tuesday statement noted, “While the species’ population numbers in Clear Lake are troubling, many of the issues affecting Clear Lake and its associated tributaries are chronic and have no immediate solution or need further investigation to determine an appropriate solution.”
“We are disappointed that not only did USFWS not reach out to inform the tribal leaders who signed the emergency listing request of the service's decision, but they also continue to insist that the causes of our chi's demise are uncertain and complex,” said Big Valley Band of Pomo Indian Chairman Philip Gomez.
“An emergency listing could require that water users time their extractions and use during the spawning season. This would result in increased water flow in the creeks during the critical spawning period, allowing newly hatched chi to make it back to the lake,” Gomez said. “Without state or federal requirements such as these, a year with normal to little rain will result again in severely reduced levels of our chi as we have seen for years. This is a step that USFWS could have required in an emergency listing.”
The hitch has been listed as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act since 2014.
In 2020, Fish and Wildlife declined to list the fish, which led to a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity.
Fish and Wildlife said Tuesday that it is still in the midst of an evaluation of the hitch, which is expected to be completed in 2025. That has the potential to lead to a federal listing under its regular process.
However, Meg Townsend of the Center for Biological Diversity told Lake County News this week that a listing doesn’t guarantee that a species can be saved, and that protections for the species and habitat are needed.
Over the past month and a half, the high water levels in Clear Lake and its tributaries — the result of this winter’s string of atmospheric river storms — has made for better spawning conditions for the hitch, which have been spotted in large numbers.
In some cases, creeks spilling over into fields in the Kelseyville area led to farmers and tribal representatives working side by side to move the fish safely back into the streams in April. That work has to be done under a special state permit.
“The multi tribal hitch observation and rescue efforts, along with the Big Valley Tribe’s ongoing review and monitoring of the ground and surface water flows in the watershed are important efforts that are providing some protection, but more is needed. We can't have our chi go extinct on our watch,” Gomez said.
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Big Valley Pomo respond to federal decision not to give Clear Lake hitch emergency listing
- Elizabeth Larson
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