The following is a press release issued by the Center for Biological Diversity:

In response to a 2012 petition by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed to protect the Clear Lake hitch — a large minnow found only in Northern California’s Clear Lake and its tributaries — as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Clear Lake hitch numbers have declined precipitously as their habitat has been degraded and destroyed.
“I’m relieved that strong protections are on the way for these iconic fish who embody the hope for a restored Clear Lake, and whose persistence is so meaningful for indigenous cultures,” said Jeff Miller, a senior conservation advocate at the Center. “The hitch need immediate emergency actions if they’re going to survive. Endangered Species Act protections can help ensure that happens.”
Clear Lake hitch migrate each spring, when adults make their way into the streams that connect to Clear Lake to spawn before returning to the lake. Millions of hitch once crowded into the lake’s tributaries during spectacular spawning runs. These masses of hitch were a vital part of the Clear Lake ecosystem and an important food source for numerous birds, other fish and wildlife. Hitch were also a staple food and a cultural mainstay for the original Pomo inhabitants of the region. Now just a few thousand adult fish spawn in a good year, with numbers dipping much lower in recent years.
The primary threat to Clear Lake hitch is a lack of water flowing in the tributaries during their spring spawning. This is caused by water over-withdrawal, both legal and illegal, that is being worsened by climate change-driven drought. The hitch are also threatened by fish-passage barriers, habitat degradation, pollution, and predation and competition from invasive fish such as carp and bass.
The hitch need emergency action to survive, including captive rearing, preventing illegal water withdrawals, controlling invasive predatory fish and maintaining adequate water flows.
The Clear Lake hitch’s closest relative was the Clear Lake splittail, a fish driven to extinction by the 1970s because of habitat alterations that dried out spawning streams and barriers that prevented their spawning migrations.
“Unless stream and wetland habitats are restored and the fish reintroduced into former spawning tributaries, Clear Lake’s hitch may go extinct like the lake’s former splittail population,” Miller said. “We can’t let that happen.”
Background
Clear Lake hitch have adapted to a very brief period of suitable stream conditions for their annual spawning run, with streams drying earlier each year. With an estimated six-year lifespan, the species can’t survive numerous consecutive years of failed spawning.
Suitable hitch habitat has been significantly degraded, with an 85% loss of former wetland habitat around Clear Lake critical for juvenile rearing, a 92% loss of historical stream spawning and rearing habitat, and worsening lake water quality.
Clear Lake Tribes have been leading efforts to restore the hitch and protect their spawning streams and were the first to begin scientific research on habitat conditions and threats to the fish. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and U.S. Geological Survey now conduct regular hitch surveys. Several fish passage projects have been completed in spawning tributaries and invasive carp are being removed. The Tribes pushed the State Water Resources Control Board to review excessive creek water pumping and groundwater resources in the basin. Tribal and state biologists have been rescuing spawning and juvenile hitch stranded in drying streams.
In 2012 the Center petitioned to protect the Clear Lake hitch under both the federal and state endangered species acts. In 2014 the hitch was designated as a threatened species under the California Endangered Species Act.
Not one word about the real cause of the reduction in the hitch,the planting of the Florida bass in the 70’s its a real shame that fish and game doesn’t take responsibility for this huge mistake
The lake brings in $$$ from bass tourneys. Unless cat h and release of bass is stopped as a policy or a hatchery is built for the hitch to repopulate in large amounts, there’s no future for the hitch.
Will the native Clear Lake Hitch go the way that the native Delta Smelt is heading? We have to remember extinction is forever.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should upgrade their proposal to protect the Clear Lake Hitch as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.
Ever hear of Fisheries?
I’m all for more hitch in the lake. Big bass love hitch!
Let’s cut off the developers, vineyards and dope grows before blaming the black bass. Keep more water in the lake and it’s tributaries, yes. Of course any attempt at “controlling” the non-native fish species would prove futile. Not to mention that the black bass fishery is a keystone contributor to lake county’s economy. Whether one fishes for bass or not, the residents of lake county are better off for having bass in the lake.
I can’t believe that all these retarded policies for little fish are causing water supply problems in the California. Just a supreme example of a small group of morons who want to make the decisions for us. Put it to a vote and see if it slides with the people of California. Getting rid of Lake Sonoma should not happen. The LA fires are a warning for this region. We already had devastation. Let’s not subject the people of this county that rank among California’s poorest to go through this shit again.
LA shouldn’t have gone through this either.
Federal protections?
Good luck with that.
Not in the present climate.
What about the protections for homeowners and for humans in general?
You got the shit twisted brother.
Long term ecosystem destruction for short term human only gains.?.
How short sighted.
That’s not why we have water problems. We have water problems because we don’t use water for drinking.
For example 1800 gallons are used to produce 1 pound of beef.
34 gallons for a glass of wine, and so on.
That doesn’t account for leaks and such.
Only 4% of fresh water is used, is used by private households. The rest is industry and ag.
Some industry just takes the water to cool its equipment and then releases it back warm. Nice.
These industries are causing our fires if you wanna get deep, meaning we are ALL to blame, because we all consume.
No one is reducing your water because of the smelt or hitch, water is being cut for private residents so that INDUSTRY can have it: so that we can have phones and wine. No government, on either side has created an army of men to combat disaster in our own country. I know this article was placed as bait to stir up this exact debate, and we took the hook. They want us blaming each other instead of them, the rapacious industries that convince us to fight.
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The fish had a great spawn in 2023 & 2024. Happy to see that. I saw very large numbers. I think a bounty on the carp would be good. Carp shooters would like it and would be a more consistant program of removal.
It’s unfortunate for the Hitch that Lake County sold the Lake to Yolo County. Every year, Yolo County drains the lake for farmers down river and “White Water Rafting” down the Cache Creek. If they did not drain the lake so bad in the summer, the tributary’s and creeks will be backed up longer after the spring allowing the fish a better habitat. Lake County made the mistake by selling off the lake when it did not benefit the fish or residents.
Sounds similar to Ukiah’s great idea to to give Sonoma county most of our water rights in Lake Mendocino to build the dam back 60 years ago. What a huge mistake!
If the waterways were cleared of trees and debris, the hitch could make there journey. But between local agencies, state agencies and tribes, no one is allowed to touch our creeks and water ways!!
Hitch are native to California, I’ve had thousands in my pond, which is fed by irrigation water from the south fork of the feather river. The hitch in Clear Lake is different because they are in Clear Lake?
Yours are illegal immigrants that are displacing Natives 😉
We had Fisheries when I was a kid. We toured them in school. Why are things so difficult?
Fisheries have to be managed. Nature managed herself in the past, and way better too. “Look kids a cement pond that stinks! Now watch this natural process of filling this female with gas so she bloats and watch me squish her till she pops all her eggs here in a basin. Now where’s my fish sperm? These eggs need fertilizing. Someday kids, if your parents ever get a weekend off and get off their phones, you can catch one of these little fellers here too”
What a shame. I remember playing in Kelsey creek when I was just a youngster seeing hundreds of Hitch coming up the creek.