LAKEPORT – The Chi Council, a group of volunteers who watch the creeks for a resurgence of chi, the Pomo name for the native hitch fish, received the Fish and Wildlife Council award for meritorious service Tuesday during the Board of Supervisors meeting.
Gregory Giusti, the county's University of California Cooperative Extension director and chairman of the Lake County Fish and Wildlife Council, presented the award to Chi Council President Peter Windrem, who accepted it on behalf of the group.
The award has not been given since 1999. Both men were recently honored as environmental Stars of Lake County.
“This year we cast a broad net,” Giusti said.
This is the first time it has gone to a group.
The fish, once abundant in Clear Lake, were food for indigenous people and for the lake's bass. Part of the reason they have been dwindling in numbers is that bridge abutments act as dams, along 30 miles of their spawning grounds in the creeks. Recently they have been found only in Adobe and Kelsey Creeks.
Windrem said the 80 volunteers are “people who stand on bridges spotting fish.” He said they come from all walks of life.
The hitch, Lavinia exilicauda, is endemic to central California, and once very common.
They are generally silver all over; younger fish have a black spot at the base of the tail, losing it as they age, and becoming generally darker as well.
They can get large for minnows, occasionally growing to a pound of weight. They are omnivores of the water, eating a combination of filamentous algae, insects and zooplankton.
E-mail Sophie Annan Jensen at
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