LAKEPORT >> The status of the Clear Lake hitch was the topic of a presentation given to the Lake County Board of Supervisors Tuesday.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife Senior Fishery Biologist Kevin Thomas gave the presentation, which briefly discussed plans of action to protect streams, tributaries and the lake shore to ensure hitch are protected.
Clear Lake hitch migrate each spring, when adults make their way upstream in tributaries of Clear Lake to spawn before they return to the lake. The spawning runs in 2013 and 2014 were the worst in recorded history, with only a few hundred fish spawning in two streams.
In 2014 the California Fish and Game Commission designated the Clear Lake hitch as a threatened species under California’s state Endangered Species Act. Numbers of spawning hitch in 2015 are also very low.
“During a status review, just about everything having to do with Clear Lake was identified as necessary for their existence,” Thomas said. “The lake itself, the spawning tributaries, the surrounding wetland habitat for rearing and the open pelagic water for feeding.”
“No decisions have been made,” Greg Giusti, director of the University of California Cooperative Extension, said. “As this goes forward it is going to have to be an iterative process.”
In fall of last year, Giusti was asked to be a facilitator between county departments and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to determine each county department’s role in protecting the hitch.
“We are at the very beginning of this … it can’t really move forward until the county jumps on board,” Thomas explained.
Because the threatened listing is relatively new, the Department of Fish and Wildlife is still doing research including a lake-wide fish monitoring study and a mercury capture study. Federal endangered species funds have been secured and will be used to perform spawning and barrier assessments on tributaries next spring.
“This is a new process for us,” District 4 Supervisor Anthony Farrington said. “It has a lot of people concerned.”
“Its going to be a balancing act,” Farrington added.
No members of the public offered comment and no action was required by the board, as the presentation was for informational purposes.
Contact J. W. Burch, IV at 900-2022.
