LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Tuesday, Dec. 11, is a special day for those who love mountains.
That’s because Dec. 11 has been designated International Mountain Day.
The day was created by the United Nations in 2003 to promote awareness about the importance of the world’s mountains and highlands.
Mountains are crucial to life, provide most of the world's fresh water, harbor a rich variety of plants and animals, and are home to one in ten people.
Luckily you don’t have to go far to appreciate breathtaking mountains.
Dominating the Lake County skyline and rising to an elevation of 4,300 feet is Mt. Konocti.
The mountain is sacred to the native Pomo, and continues to be admired and treasured by those who today call the county home.
It is so important that the county of Lake purchased 1,520 acres atop the mountain in 2009 in order to create a park.
In neighboring Yolo County there is Berryessa Peak, the highest point of Blue Ridge, a small mountain ridge east of Lake Berryessa.
In September 2008, private landowners established a trail easement that opened up 9,100 acres of public lands and gave public access to the remarkable views and summit of Berryessa Peak.
Then there is Snow Mountain, located in the 37,000 acre Snow Mountain Wilderness in the Mendocino National Forest.
The tallest peak, known as Snow Mountain East, is just over 7,000 feet in elevation and is renowned for being the highest point in both Colusa and Lake counties.
The hike to the top of East Peak is a moderate climb, providing stunning views of the Sacramento Valley and the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east, Clear Lake to the southwest and the Mendocino National Forest to the North.
During the winter, the summits of Snow Mountain accumulate a snowpack that can last until June. These snowpacks are an important water source that feed into nearby streams and rivers as they melt.
Every year in mid-December, astronomers look up in the sky and witness a mystery.
It announces itself with a flurry of shooting stars. For several nights in a row, dozens to hundreds of meteors per hour cut across the glistening constellations of winter, each one a little puzzle waiting to be solved.
“It’s the Geminid meteor shower – set to peak on Dec. 13 and 14,” said Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “Although the Geminids come every year, we still don’t fully understand them.”
Most meteor showers are caused by icy comets, which spew jets of meteoroids when they are heated by sunlight. The Geminids are different. The parent is not a comet but a weird rocky object named 3200 Phaethon.
When 3200 Phaethon was discovered in 1983 by NASA’s IRAS satellite, astronomers quickly realized that they had found the source of the Geminids.
The orbit of 3200 Phaethon was such a close match to that of the Geminid debris stream, no other conclusion was possible. Yet here was a puzzler: Everything about 3200 Phaethon suggests it is an asteroid.
In fact, 3200 Phaethon resembles main belt asteroid Pallas so much, it could well be a 5-kilometer chip off that 544 km block.
“If 3200 Phaethon broke apart from asteroid Pallas, as some researchers believe, then Geminid meteoroids might be debris from the breakup,” speculated Cooke.
There is, however, another possibility: Perhaps 3200 Phaethon is a “rock comet.”
A “rock comet” is a new kind of object being discussed by some astronomers. It is, essentially, an asteroid that comes very close to the sun – so close that solar heating scorches dusty debris right off its rocky surface.
Rock comets could thus grow comet-like tails made of gravely debris that produce meteor showers on Earth.
Could this be the answer?
To test the idea, researchers turned to NASA’s twin STEREO spacecraft, which are designed to study solar activity.
In June 2009, STEREO watched 3200 Phaethon passing only 15 solar diameters from the sun’s surface. What happened next surprised UCLA planetary scientists David Jewitt and Jing Li, who analyzed the data.
They said 3200 Phaethon unexpectedly brightened by a factor of two. “The most likely explanation is that Phaethon ejected dust, perhaps in response to a break-down of surface rocks (through thermal fracture and decomposition cracking of hydrated minerals) in the intense heat of the Sun.”
So, according to the STEREO observations, 3200 Phaethon does behave like a rock comet.
The “rock comet” hypothesis is compelling, but Jewett and Li point out a problem: The amount of dust 3200 Phaethon ejected during its sun-encounter added a paltry 0.01 percent to the mass of the Geminid debris stream, not enough to keep the debris stream stocked up with meteoroids for the annual display of shooting stars. 3200 Phaethon is not spewing enough dust to account for the Geminids.
Could the rock comet have been more active in the past?
“We just don’t know,” said Cooke.
Forecasters expect Geminid meteor rates to top 100 per hour when the shower peaks on the moonless nights of Dec. 13 and 14. Cooke encouraged sky watchers to go out, look up and savor the mystery.
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Four dogs are featured for adoption this week at Lake County Animal Care and Control.
The dogs – mixes of boxer, Chihuahua, American Staffordshire Terrier and German Shepherd – have all been altered and have the necessary shots, so they can go right home with their new owners.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
Male German Shepherd mix
This male German Shepherd mix is 1 year old.
He has a short black coat, weighs nearly 50 pounds and has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 6, ID No. 34894.
‘Mia’
“Mia” is a 2-year-old American Staffordshire Terrier mix.
She has a short red coat, weighs 57 pounds and has been spayed.
Find Mia in kennel No. 7, ID No. 34847.
‘Brody’
“Brody” is an older boxer who recently fell on hard times and arrived at the animal shelter after his owner could no longer keep him.
He is 7 years old, has a docked tail and a short brown brindle-colored coat.
Brody is altered and weighs nearly 90 pounds.
You can find him in kennel No. 10, ID No. 34726.
‘Poncho’
“Poncho” is a 2-year-old male Chihuahua-terrier mix.
He weighs 10.6 pounds and has a medium-length red coat. He has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 30, ID No. 34860.
Please note: Dogs listed at the shelter's Web page that are said to be “on hold” are not yet cleared for adoption.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
A new report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation documents more than 6,200 hate crimes reported across the United States in 2011.
Hate Crime Statistics, 2011, published by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, provides data about the offenses, victims, offenders and locations of the bias-motivated incidents reported by law enforcement agencies throughout the nation.
Based on the report, 6,222 criminal incidents involving 7,254 offenses were reported in 2011 as a result of bias toward a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability.
The report said there were 6,216 single-bias incidents, of which 46.9 percent were motivated by a racial bias, 20.8 percent were motivated by a sexual orientation bias, 19.8 percent were motivated by a religious bias and 11.6 percent were motivated by an ethnicity/national origin bias. Bias against a disability accounted for 0.9 percent of single-bias incidents.
Of the 4,623 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in 2011, intimidation accounted for 45.6 percent, simple assaults for 34.5 percent, and aggravated assaults for 19.4 percent. Four murders and seven forcible rapes were reported as hate crimes.
There were 2,611 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property. The majority of these (81.4 percent) were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism. Robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and other offenses accounted for the remaining 18.6 percent of crimes against property.
Fifty-nine percent of the 5,731 known offenders were white; 20.9 percent were black. The race was unknown for 10.8 percent, and other races accounted for the remaining known offenders.
Most hate crime incidents – 32 percent – occurred in or near homes. Eighteen percent took place on highways, roads, alleys or streets; 9.3 percent happened at schools or colleges; 5.9 percent in parking lots or garages; and 4.4 percent in churches, synagogues, or temples. The location was considered other (undesignated) or unknown for 11.3 percent of hate crime incidents. The remaining 19.1 percent of hate crime incidents took place at other specified or multiple locations.
The FBI said that, beginning in 2013, law enforcement agencies reporting hates crimes will be able to get even more specific when reporting bias motivation.
The new bias categories of gender and gender identity were added to the FBI’s hate crime data collection as a result of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Other bias types were modified to comply with the race and ethnicity designations specified by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
Hate crimes continue to be the highest priority of the bureau’s civil rights program because of their heinous nature and their impact on victims and communities.
The FBI said it investigates hate crimes that fall under federal jurisdiction, assist state and local authorities during their own investigations, and in some cases – with the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division – monitor developing situations to determine if federal action is appropriate.
In addition to responding to hate crimes, the FBI also is taking a proactive approach to hate crimes overall, integrating a cadre of analysts with its experienced investigators to not only establish a national threat picture but to identify risk factors that can be used by FBI field offices to assess the potential for hate crimes at the local level.
The agency reported that it is working to increase awareness of these crimes by establishing liaisons with civic and religious leaders and credible community organizations. It also is offering training to help law enforcement recognize hate crimes and assist partners in developing their own hate crimes training programs.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Police are investigating a Sunday morning armed robbery at a Clearlake grocery store.
Ray’s Food Place, located at 15930 Dam Road, was the target of the robbery.
Clearlake Police on Sunday afternoon were continuing to work on the case, and were not prepared to release many details.
“There was an incident at Ray’s Food Place and it’s under investigation,” said Det. Tim Alvarado, adding that police would be prepared to release more details on Monday.
Ray’s Food Place Manager Brandi Hammes said the robbery occurred between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. Sunday.
A single male suspect, dressed in camouflage and wearing a ski mask, came into the store with a rifle, Hammes said.
“He actually said he wasn't going to kill anybody, he was just hungry and needed money,” said Hammes.
Hammes said the man did get cash, but she could not disclose the amount.
The suspect discharged one round into the store’s ceiling, and when he left the store he shot two of the store’s front windows by the bakery and deli, Hammes said.
“Nobody is hurt, everybody is fine,” she said.
Hammes said they had not received any information on whether or not the suspect had been caught, and police did not report an arrest.
Additional details will be posted as they become available.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Twin NASA probes orbiting Earth’s moon have generated the highest resolution gravity field map of any celestial body.
The new map, created by the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, is allowing scientists to learn about the moon’s internal structure and composition in unprecedented detail.
Data from the two washing machine-sized spacecraft also will provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved.
The gravity field map reveals an abundance of features never before seen in detail, such as tectonic structures, volcanic landforms, basin rings, crater central peaks and numerous simple, bowl-shaped craters.
Data also show the moon’s gravity field is unlike that of any terrestrial planet in our solar system.
These are the first scientific results from the prime phase of the mission, and they are published in three papers in the journal Science.
“What this map tells us is that more than any other celestial body we know of, the moon wears its gravity field on its sleeve,” said GRAIL Principal Investigator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “When we see a notable change in the gravity field, we can sync up this change with surface topography features such as craters, rilles or mountains.”
According to Zuber, the moon’s gravity field preserves the record of impact bombardment that characterized all terrestrial planetary bodies and reveals evidence for fracturing of the interior extending to the deep crust and possibly the mantle. This impact record is preserved, and now precisely measured, on the moon.
The probes revealed the bulk density of the moon’s highland crust is substantially lower than generally assumed. This low-bulk crustal density agrees well with data obtained during the final Apollo lunar missions in the early 1970s, indicating that local samples returned by astronauts are indicative of global processes.
“With our new crustal bulk density determination, we find that the average thickness of the moon’s crust is between 21 and 27 miles (34 and 43 kilometers), which is about 6 to 12 miles (10 to 20 kilometers) thinner than previously thought,” said Mark Wieczorek, GRAIL co-investigator at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris. “With this crustal thickness, the bulk composition of the moon is similar to that of Earth. This supports models where the moon is derived from Earth materials that were ejected during a giant impact event early in solar system history.”
The map was created by the spacecraft transmitting radio signals to define precisely the distance between them as they orbit the moon in formation. As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity caused by visible features, such as mountains and craters, and masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, the distance between the two spacecraft will change slightly.
“We used gradients of the gravity field in order to highlight smaller and narrower structures than could be seen in previous datasets,” said Jeff Andrews-Hanna, a GRAIL guest scientist with the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. “This data revealed a population of long, linear gravity anomalies, with lengths of hundreds of kilometers, crisscrossing the surface. These linear gravity anomalies indicate the presence of dikes, or long, thin, vertical bodies of solidified magma in the subsurface. The dikes are among the oldest features on the moon, and understanding them will tell us about its early history.”
While results from the primary science mission are just beginning to be released, the collection of gravity science by the lunar twins continues. GRAIL’s extended mission science phase began Aug. 30 and will conclude Dec. 17. As the end of mission nears, the spacecraft will operate at lower orbital altitudes above the moon.
When launched in September 2011, the probes were named GRAIL A and B. They were renamed Ebb and Flow in January by elementary students in Bozeman, Mont., in a nationwide contest. Ebb and Flow were placed in a near-polar, near-circular orbit at an altitude of approximately 34 miles (55 kilometers) on Dec. 31, 2011, and Jan. 1, 2012, respectively.
LUCERNE, Calif. – Lucerne residents will have the chance this week to get updates from county officials on the latest projects in the town.
The community town hall meeting will take place beginning at 4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 13, at the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center, located at the corner of 10th Avenue and Country Club Drive.
District 3 Supervisor Denise Rushing will host the meeting.
Topics will include the Lucerne water issue, particularly a proposed 77-percent rate increase proposed by California Water Service Co.
There also will be an update on the Lucerne Hotel, which is to be the home of the third campus for Southern California-based Marymount College.
This fall the county and Marymount signed a 15-year lease agreement for the historic, 1920s-era building.
There also will be a county projects update and an open forum.
Free tables will be set up for local groups, businesses or organizations wishing to distribute literature.
For more information, contact Rushing at 707-263-2368 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Community members had the chance to learn about both the Endangered Species Act listing process as well as a threatened native fish, the Clear Lake hitch, at a Dec. 3 workshop in Lakeport.
About 60 people were in attendance for the meeting, which took place last Monday evening in the board chambers of the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport.
In September, the Center for Biological Diversity submitted Endangered Species Act listing petitions to both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game for the Clear Lake hitch, as Lake County News has reported.
The process is expected to be a lengthy one, community members were told at the meeting.
The Chi Council for the Clear Lake Hitch hosted the workshop in response to the level of anxiety in the community, said Council Co-Chair Peter Windrem.
Windrem said the Clear Lake hitch and the listing process – referred to throughout the meeting as the “ESA” – are both huge subjects. “We will only scratch the surface tonight,” he said.
During the first part of the two-hour meeting, Windrem’s co-chair, Greg Giusti of the University of California Cooperative Extension, provided an overview of the hitch life cycle.
The hitch, said Giusti, spends a portion of its life in Clear Lake and another portion in local streams. Both parts of the fish’s life, he said, “are equally important to the well-being of the species.”
There have been relationships between fish and people for thousand of years, he said. There are the ancient relationships, such as those between the native peoples who originally lived in the Clear Lake basin and the hitch, to the more recent relationships developed over the past 100 years between white settlers and other fish in the lake.
Giusti acknowledged that some people at the meeting were interested in the hitch, others in the bass for which the lake in recent decades has become known. “You can’t separate the two,” he said. “They share the same space. They share the same environment.”
The one thing that can be said with certainty about the hitch, said Giusti, is “there are fewer now than there used to be.”
Giusti said he’s spoken with many people who witnessed the hitch runs over the years, who report that the numbers now are far lower. In a PowerPoint presentation, which can be seen below, he included a postcard from the late 1880s that showed tens of thousands of hitch stranded in a Big Valley stream after flood waters receded. During spawning runs now, maybe a few hundred fish are seen.
By 1872 a very thorough review had been completed of Clear Lake, which at that time was seen as an experimental lab for releasing new fish, said Giusti.
Native fishes identified in Clear Lake in 1872 were the Pacific lamprey, threespine stickleback, Sacramento perch, tule perch, prickly sculpin, the rainbow trout and the Cyprinidae, a taxonomic group of minnows that included the Clear Lake hitch, thicktail chub, Clear Lake splittail, Sacramento pikeminnow and Sacramento blackfish, according to Giusti.
He said the Pacific lamprey and rainbow trout are no longer in Clear Lake, most likely due to the Clear Lake dam preventing their migration. He said rainbow trout are still found in some local creeks.
The thicktail chub and Clear Lake splittail are now extinct, said Giusti. The thicktail chub was last caught in the lake in 1938 and is now globally extinct; the splittail was last seen in the 1970s.
Beginning in the 1880s a number of fish were introduced into the lake, with introductions taking place up until the 1980s.
Those introduced fish that established themselves included the brown bullhead, introduced in 1880; common carp, 1880; white catfish, 1880 and 1923; largemouth bass, 1888; smallmouth bass, 1895; golden shiner, 1896; bluegill, 1909-10; black crappie, 1915; mosquitofish, 1925; green sunfish, first appeared on record in 1941; channel catfish, 1950; white crappie, 1950s; goldfish, first appeared on record between 1950 and 1963; inland silverside, 1967; redear sunfish, 1973; and threadfin shad, 1985.
Giusti said that the issues with the health of Clear Lake and its fish were put in motion a long time ago, not just in the last decade.
He showed a list of key dates beginning with the 1840 arrival of European settlers in Lake County. Within 40 years new fish species were being introduced to Clear Lake.
Beginning in 1949 and continuing in 1954 and 1957, there were DDT treatments of Clear Lake to try to control the Clear Lake gnat. Also in 1949, it was reported that runs of “hitch” – most likely wrongly identified and actually Clear Lake splittail – had decreased, with squawfish almost extinct by 1951.
In 1962, the hitch were still reported to be plentiful, according to the timeline. The following year, methyl parathion was applied three to four times on the lake, also to control the gnats. In 1966, the Sacramento perch were considered rare. By 1988, the once abundant crappie were in decline.
“You’re always playing catch up” in trying to track Clear Lake’s dynamic changes, said Giusti. “It’s like wrestling an octopus.”
Life of the hitch
The Clear Lake hitch spawns in late winter and early spring, with the females – larger than their male counterparts – having “the ability to make a lot of progeny,” said Giusti.
Females mature in their second or third year of life, while males reach maturity from their first through third years, he said.
According to Giusti’s presentation, hitch eggs hatch in about seven days, depending on water temperature. Within seven days of hatching, young hitch begin moving downstream, which they are hardwired to do.
They seek protection near structures like docks and in the native tule beds near the mouths of creeks. Giusti said they will stay near tule patches until they are about 2 inches long, a growth process that can take up to 90 days depending on available food sources.
Then they move into deeper parts of the lake, where they feed on a soup of microscopic organisms like chironomid larvae, or rice flies, which Giusti called “tasty little cheeseburgers.”
Hitch usually are between 4.3 and 6.6 inches long by the end of their first year and 5.9 to 11.8 inches by the end of their second year. They grow to a maximum size of about 14 inches, he said.
Once the hitch are in Clear Lake, little is known about what they do or where they go, said Giusti. It’s not known if they return to their natal streams for spawning.
The only thing known for sure is the hitch go from streams to Clear Lake. “After that it is pretty much a mystery of what is going on out there,” Giusti said.
Giusti said that, because Clear Lake is so biologically rich, the hitch that live in the lake tend to grow faster than hitch living in other water bodies.
Based on hitch observations from 2005 to 2010, Giusti said the hitch spent an average of 72 days a year in creeks.
When considering if predation is a major factor in the hitch’s decline, Giusti cautioned that predation is not linear, and that it involves multiple and complex interactions. He said there are other species eating the hitch, but it’s also important to consider “recruitment,” or the process of younger fishing replacing and surpassing the older population.
There also is the matter of competition, which redistributes food sources at multiple levels and creates behavior changes, Giusti said.
Giusti called the inland silverside and threadfin shad “game changers” in understanding the complex forces at work in hitch population changes.
The silverside was introduced in 1967, feeds almost exclusively on zooplankton and is now the lake’s most abundant species. The threadfin shad, introduced illegally in the 1980s, was known to have caused the collapse of the zooplankton Daphnia and can achieve very high densities in its cyclic population.
Giusti said that, when it comes to what is going on in Clear Lake due to competition, predation, pollution and introduced species, “Not much we can do here, what’s done is done.”
Rather, he suggested recruitment can be helped in local streams, where factors like drought, water diversion, gravel extraction, stream incision, premature stream drying, migration barriers and vegetation loss have been at play.
Another possible factor impacting the hitch is that, since 1969, Clear Lake has been getting clearer due to changes in phytoplankton – or algae – cycles, Giusti said.
There is also the matter of blue green algae. “The biggest change in the lake in the last five years is the presence of this new blue green algae, this lyngbya,” which Giusti said may be influenced by iron, phosphorous and atmospheric nitrogen.
“The ecology of the hitch in the lake today is the sum of multiple parts,” said Giusti.
Concerning population trends
Windrem said the Chi Council organized in 2004. He said “chi” and “hitch” are both Pomo words for the fish, and according to Pomo elder Nelson Hopper, chi was used to describe the hitch and hitch was used to describe the Clear Lake splittail.
“Be that as it may, what we're now talking about is hitch,” said Windrem.
He explained that agricultural water pumping in the Big Valley began extensively in the early 1940s due to pear orchard planting. As a result, water tables were lowered.
From the 1950s to the 1970s there was a lot of tule removal. Windrem said that exposed hitch fry to predation.
Also stressing hitch habitat was the extensive gravel mining in creeks for the purpose of road and highway construction, and channeling of stream mouths, such as was done at Clear Lake State Park for the purpose of creating a campground, he said.
Gravel was stripped out two miles upstream from Highway 29, with the effect being to degrade spawning beds, Windrem explained.
It also degraded the underpinnings of the bridge over Kelsey Creek on Main Street in Kelseyville; Windrem said the downstream gravel mining threatened at one point to cause that bridge to tip over.
As a result, a barrier was installed at the bridge’s base; that barrier also prevents hitch from moving upstream, Windrem said.
Looking at hitch spawning from 2004 through this past spring, Windrem said hitch population is trending downward. “That is the source of a great concern to the Chi Council, obviously,” said Windrem who, like Giusti, suggested resources can be best focused on spawning grounds.
Biologist Jonathan Ambrose explained the listing process, noting there are five factors to consider: present or threatened destruction; overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific or educational uses; disease or predation; inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; and other natural or manmade factors affecting the specie’s continued existence.
At the end of the petition period, the government will make a decision on whether or not a full listing is warranted. If it is, Ambrose said a recovery plan will be created and critical habitat designated.
He said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service currently is working on listing petitions for 260 species, and so the process could face significant delay.
Ambrose said he has been surprised at how much concern and trepidation there is in the community in response to the hitch’s potential endangered listing.
While he acknowledged potential downsides to the listing, there also are positives, including the opportunity to get funding to fix the bridge barriers hampering hitch movements.
Panelists offer perspectives on the issue
In a panel discussion at the end of the meeting, Jeff Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity, the main author on the hitch listing petitions, explained, “Our goal is to protect endangered wildlife and the habitats they depend upon.”
He said the hitch came onto the group’s radar some time ago when it was listed as a species of concern.
When asked how many petitions the center files, Miller responded, “Not enough,” adding that rates of extinction are now thousands of times faster than previously seen.
“We’re filing a very small percentage of the petitions that should be filed” if they are to keep life around on the planet, said Miller, adding that they have an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to address the listing backlog.
Windrem noted during the panel discussion that having the hitch listed as an endangered species could help with the restoration of the Middle Creek wetland area, which is meant to return 1,650 acres of land to the lake. “Perhaps this is a positive relationship that we’re going to have as a result of this.”
Panelists Paula Britton and Sarah Ryan, environmental directors for the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake and Big Valley Rancheria, respectively, have participated in some of the most involved and extensive studies of Clear Lake hitch.
Britton said hitch have been seen as far upstream as the Clear Lake dam. “They will go as far as they can go when the amount of water is in the stream.”
Ryan said that during their study of the fish they have noticed that most hitch have an anchor worm parasite, which usually occurs in a highly stressed environment.
The parasite causes the hitch to act strange. “It changes their behavior,” she said.
Due to reduced marshlands, the fish also have less chance to protect themselves from predators, Ryan explained. She said more water in streams can help the fish.
Ryan said if a listing results, “It shouldn’t be too much of a huge change for people.”
Britton explained that in 2009 local tribes partnered on a study that involved water quality, tagging hitch and creating a hitch fishery to reestablish the fish. Since then, they have been competing for funds to sustain the program.
The Scotts Valley tribe is doing a major headlands restoration project to benefit the fish while Britton said she has continued her tagging work.
She confirmed Ryan’s statements about the conditions of the fish, noting that 100 percent of the fish Habematolel tagged in 2011 were found to have parasites or a fungus. Thirteen percent of the tagged fish had injuries or abnormalities, including an unusual scaling pattern near the back fin.
“I will tell you, I have a lot of respect for these fish, that they are even able to survive,” said Britton, explaining that only the “Olympic swimmers” are able to get over the manmade barriers in creeks.
Britton added of the hitch and their challenges, “There’s a lot we don’t know but I think we’re beginning to get a handle on this.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
The world’s largest earthquakes occur at subduction zones – locations where a tectonic plate slips under another.
But where along these extended subduction areas are great earthquakes most likely to happen?
Scientists have now found that regions where “scars” on the sea floor, called fracture zones, meet subduction areas are at higher risk of generating powerful earthquakes. The results were published in Solid Earth, an Open Access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).
“We find that 87 percent of the 15 largest (8.6 magnitude or higher) and half of the 50 largest (8.4 magnitude or higher) earthquakes of the past century are associated with intersection regions between oceanic fracture zones and subduction zones,” said Dietmar Müller, researcher at the University of Sydney in Australia and lead author of the Solid Earth paper. The connection is less striking for smaller earthquakes.
Powerful earthquakes related to these intersection regions include the destructive 2011 Tohoku-Oki and 2004 Sumatra events.
“If the association we found were due to a random data distribution, only about 25 percent of great subduction earthquakes should coincide with these special tectonic environments. Therefore, we can rule out that the link we found is just due to chance,” he added.
The floor of the Earth’s oceans is crossed by underwater mountain systems, or ocean ridges, such as the mid-Atlantic ridge that runs from north to south between the Americas and Africa.
These ridges divide two tectonic plates that move apart as lava emerges from the opening, spreading the sea floor.
The mid-ocean ridge jogs back and forth at offsets known as transform faults, creating zig-zagged plate boundaries. Fracture zones are scars in the ocean floor left by these transform faults.
The researchers considered about 1,500 earthquakes in their study. They used a database of significant post-1900 events, as well as geophysical data mapping fracture zones and subduction zones, among others. They analyzed information from these databases by using a specific data mining method.
“The method was originally developed for analyzing online user data,” said Thomas Landgrebe, also involved in the study. “The technique we apply is commonly used to find a few specific items which are expected to be most appealing to an Internet user. Instead, we use it to find which tectonic environment is most suitable for generating great earthquakes.”
Since earthquake generation is a very complex process, the scientists don’t yet have a complete understanding of why great earthquakes prefer the intersection areas.
They suggest that it is due to the physical properties of fracture zones, which result in “strong, persistent coupling in the subduction boundaries,” Landgrebe explained. This means that the subduction fault area is locked and thus capable of accumulating stress over long periods of time.
“The connection we have uncovered provides critical information for seismologists to, in the long run, pinpoint particular tectonic environments that are statistically more prone to strong seismic coupling and great earthquake supercycles,” Müller said.
An area with earthquake supercycles experiences recurring powerful earthquakes every few centuries or millennia.
Regions that have long earthquake supercycles are usually not picked up as risk areas by seismic hazard maps as these are constructed mainly using data collected after 1900.
An example is the area of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, which had no record of large earthquakes over the past century and was not predicted to be of significant risk by previous hazard maps.
“The power of our new method is that it does pick up many of these regions and, hence, could contribute to much-needed improvements of long-term seismic hazard maps,” Müller explained. “Even though we don’t fully understand the physics of long earthquake cycles, any improvements that can be made using statistical data analysis should be considered as they can help reduce earthquake damage and loss of life.”
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The county’s animal shelter has several young cats and more mature felines awaiting adoption this week.
All of the handsomely striped felines have had their shots and nearly all have been either spayed or neutered in order to prepare them for new homes.
They also are microchipped before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets there, hoping you'll choose them.
The following cats at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (other cats pictured on the animal control Web site that are not listed here are still “on hold”).
Female torbie kitten
This female kitten is 5 months old.
She has a short torbie-colored coat and gold eyes, weighs 3.6 pounds and has been spayed.
Find her in cat room kennel No. 20a, ID No. 34743.
Buff-colored female kitten
This female buff-colored kitten is 5 months old.
She has a long coat, weighs 2.6 pounds and has been spayed.
Find her in cat room kennel No. 20c, ID No. 34792.
Gray tabby kitten
This gray tabby kitten is 5 months old.
He has green eyes, a short coat, weighs 3.6 pounds and has been neutered.
He’s in cat room kennel No. 20d, ID No. 34746.
Male orange tabby
This male orange tabby is 1 year old.
He has a short orange and white coat, green eyes, weighs 5 pounds and has been neutered.
Find him in cat room kennel No. 62, ID No. 34500.
Female gray tabby
This female gray tabby is 8 weeks old.
She has a short coat, green eyes, weighs 2.2 pounds and has been spayed.
She’s in cat room kennel No. 67a, ID No. 34941.
Female domestic short hair mix
This female domestic short hair mix is 2 years old.
She has green eyes and a short gray tabby coat. She has not yet been spayed.
She’s in cat room kennel No. 88, ID No. 34940.
Male gray tabby
This male gray tabby is 1 year old.
He has a short coat and green eyes, and has been neutered.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – On Saturday special events in Lower Lake and Clearlake celebrated the Christmas season.
The Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association hosted its annual “Old Fashioned Christmas” during the day and Clearlake held its annual “Christmas by the Lake” celebration in the evening.
Anderson Marsh’s open house event started in 1982 and is the nonprofit organization’s way of thanking its supporters and welcoming members of the public to the grounds.
Board member Henry Bornstein helped welcome guests to the ranch house, built in 1855. The structure and fireplaces go back to pre-Civil war days and on special occasions, such as this open house, are filled with live music, singing and a roaring fire.
An active group of volunteers provided beverage refreshments and cookies.
The Christmas tree was decorated this year by Nancy Langdon’s second grade class at Burns Valley School. The tree was to be auctioned in a free raffle at the end of the event.
The ongoing tradition is even more important today, as it brings public awareness to help keep this endangered state park open.
On Saturday evening, it was over to Clearlake for the downtown Christmas celebration.
Sixteen floats decorated in holiday style made their way along Clearlake’s Lakeshore Drive. The parade was a warm holiday treat to a chilly evening in Clearlake.
Santa and Mrs. Claus – escorted by the Clearlake Police Department and Lake County Fire Protection District – led the parade.
Following the parade, the tree lighting ceremony was held at Austin Park.
Winners of the float parade also were announced at the ceremony. They included first place, Nazarene Church; second place, Fancy Paws Pet Grooming; and third place, Performance Mechanical.
A special plaque for community appreciation was presented to the Volunteers in Policing (VIP). Jessie Boyd of Four Corners Builders Supply and the parade organizer, accepted the plaque on the VIPs’ behalf.
Parade goers were entertained throughout the night by dances and songs performed by students from local area schools. Attendees also could get their pictures taken with Santa at the park’s gazebo.
Email Nathalie V. Antus at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Thousands of Clearlake residents found themselves without power on Saturday morning due to a problem with a section of underground utility cable.
The power to approximately 3,641 customers went off at 8:39 a.m. Saturday, according to Pacific Gas & Electric spokesperson Jana Morris.
Morris said that an underground cable had become damaged or failed in the 14000 block of Lakeshore Drive.
“They’re in the process of replacing that right now,” she said Saturday afternoon.
Witnesses had reported smoke coming from the ground where the cable had been located, which was in front of the Castle Doughnuts shop. Nearby Palmer Avenue was reported to have been shut down briefly to allow for repairs.
Clearlake Police confirmed sending out some officers to the scene and clearing shortly thereafter.
Some customers were reporting that the power had come back on by late morning.
By 2:30 p.m. 12 customers were still without power. Morris said power was anticipated to be restored to all customers by 9 p.m. Saturday.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
