LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has many dogs available for adoption this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Anatolian shepherd, Belgian malinois, Chihuahua, collie, German shepherd, hound, mastiff, pit bull and terrier.
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.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
‘Little Foot’
“Little Foot” is a 7-month-old male German shepherd puppy with a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 2, ID No. LCAC-A-5315.
Male Great Pyrenees
This 1 and a half year old male Great Pyrenees has a white coat.
He is in kennel No. 3, ID No. LCAC-A-5469.
Male poodle
This 2-year-old male poodle has a black coat.
He is in kennel No. 4, ID No. LCAC-A-5541.
Anatolian shepherd-mastiff mix
This 3-year-old male Anatolian shepherd-mastiff mix has a short fawn coat.
He is in kennel No. 5, ID No. LCAC-A-5276.
Male Chihuahua
This 5-year-old male Chihuahua has a short tricolor coat.
He is in kennel No. 6, ID No. LCAC-A-5500.
‘Roasie’
“Roasie”is a 2-year-old female pit bull terrier with a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 7, ID No. LCAC-A-5434.
Female pit bull
This 3-year-old female pit bull has a short brown coat.
She is in kennel No. 8, ID No. LCAC-A-5505.
Female pit bull terrier
This 3-year-old female pit bull terrier has a brown and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 10, ID No. LCAC-A-5400.
Female Chihuahua
This 9-year-old female Chihuahua has a short brown and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 11, ID No. LCAC-A-5511.
Female German shepherd
This 2-year-old female German shepherd has a black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 12, ID No. LCAC-A-5488.
Male shepherd
This 2 and a half year old male shepherd has a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 14, ID No. LCAC-A-5479.
‘Zeta’
“Zeta” is a 1-year-old female pit bull terrier with a black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 16, ID No. LCAC-A-5427.
‘Jax’
“Jax” is a 4-year-old male Siberian husky with a black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-5477.
le Chihuahua-terrier mix
This 2-year-old male Chihuahua-terrier mix has a short white coat.
She is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-5381.
Male shepherd
This 2-year-old male shepherd has a black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 22, ID No. LCAC-A-5423.
Female pit bull terrier
This 6-year-old female pit bull terrier has a short tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-5410.
Male shepherd
This 1 and a half year old male shepherd has a short tricolor coat.
He is in kennel No. 26, ID No. LCAC-A-5424.
Female shepherd
This 2-year-old female shepherd has a short yellow and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 27, ID No. LCAC-A-5369.
Female collie mix
This 3-year-old collie mix has a black coat.
She is in kennel No. 28, ID No. LCAC-A-5514.
‘Spot’
“Spot” is a 5-month-old male pit bull puppy with a white coat.
He is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-5325.
Male shepherd mix puppy
This 6-month-old male shepherd mix puppy has a black coat with white markings.
He is in kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-5408.
‘Nana’
“Nana” is a 2-year-old female shepherd mix with a short yellow coat.
She is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-5277.
Female shepherd
This 10-month-old female shepherd has a tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 34, ID No. LCAC-A-5323.
‘Jojo’
“Jojo” is a one and a half year old female pit bull terrier with a short tricolor coat.
She is in kennel foster care, ID No. LCAC-A-5312.
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.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Lake County Vector Control District confirmed Friday that five more mosquito samples from Lake County tested positive for West Nile virus this week.
“We’re seeing West Nile virus active throughout the state, and Lake County is no exception,” said Jamesina Scott, Ph.D., district manager and research director of the Lake County Vector Control District. “If you are outside around dusk or dawn, use a mosquito repellent that contains Picaridin, IR3535, Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus, or DEET.”
West Nile virus occurs every year in California, and the summer heat increases virus activity and mosquito populations.
In Lake County this year, a total of seven mosquito samples and one dead bird have tested positive for West Nile virus, or WNV.
The positive mosquitoes were collected in Clearlake Oaks (1), Kelseyville (1), Lakeport (2), Lower Lake (2), Middletown (1).
The positive dead bird was an acorn woodpecker found near Cobb.
Mosquitoes develop in water, so tipping over any buckets or other containers of water prevents adult mosquitoes.
For water sources that can’t be drained, like a pond, livestock watering trough, water feature, or an out-of-service (green) hot tub or pool, residents should contact the District for free mosquito-eating fish to prevent mosquitoes from growing there.
A video of mosquito eggs and larvae can be viewed here.
To prevent mosquito bites, the district offers the following tips:
• Apply mosquito repellents to exposed skin before going outdoors; reapply as recommended. • Wear repellent containing Picaridin, IR3535, DEET, or oil of lemon eucalyptus. • Dump and drain any containers filled with water at least once a week. • Close unscreened doors and windows to prevent mosquitoes from entering your home; repair broken or damaged screens. • Wear loose-fitting long-sleeved shirts and long pants.
Dr. Scott reminds residents that the Lake County Vector Control District is here to help if they are noticing biting mosquitoes, would like help with a neglected pool or spa, or have an in-ground yellowjacket nest on their property that they want treated.
Residents should report dead birds — especially crows, ravens and scrub-jays — to the California West Nile Virus Call Center online at https://westnile.ca.gov/report or by calling 1-877-968-2473 (1-877-WNV-BIRD).
Statewide, this year 27 California counties have detected WNV, mainly in mosquitoes. As of Aug. 4, eight human cases of West Nile virus illness have been reported in California residents.
For more information about West Nile virus, visit http://westnile.ca.gov/. Information about mosquito repellents can be found on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website at http://www.cdc.gov/westnile/faq/repellent.html.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — The city of Lakeport has welcomed its new Community Development director, a Lake County native who has worked in a variety of jobs in bigger cities around the state but is returning to move up to a new step in his career.
Joey Hejnowicz was introduced to the Lakeport City Council and the community at the council’s Tuesday evening meeting.
Hejnowicz grew up in Kelseyville, and after graduating from high school at age 18, he decided to head off to San Diego because he was looking to live in a bigger city.
He received his undergraduate degree in business with an emphasis in hospitality and tourism and was a hospitality manager for 10 years.
Hejnowicz then made his way closer to home, to Santa Rosa, where he worked in wine sales and business development for a winery for about a year.
Then he landed a job with the city of Santa Rosa, working for the finance department and later in the city manager’s office for several years.
During his time at the city of Santa Rosa, Hejnowicz gained diverse experience, from working on utility billing and rent stability ordinances, to acting as the city’s zero waste coordinator.
Hejnowicz said he is excited to meet more of the community in his new role with the city of Lakeport.
He and his wife and dog are living in Kelseyville, in the home he grew up in, which has remained in his family.
Hejnowicz succeeds Jennifer Byers, who left in November to take the assistant economic development director job with the city of Bakersfield after just over two years with the city of Lakeport.
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.
Jonathan Losos, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to go on safari in southern Africa. One of the greatest thrills was going out at night looking for predators on the prowl: lions, leopards, hyenas.
As we drove through the darkness, though, our spotlight occasionally lit up a smaller hunter – a slender, tawny feline, faintly spotted or striped. The glare would catch the small cat for a moment before it darted back into the shadows.
Based on its size and appearance, I initially presumed it was someone’s pet inexplicably out in the bush. But further scrutiny revealed distinctive features: legs slightly longer than those of most domestic cats, and a striking black-tipped tail. Still, if you saw one from your kitchen window, your first thought would be “Look at that beautiful cat in the backyard,” not “How’d that African wildcat get to New Jersey?”
Yet, I’ve always loved and been fascinated by felines, ever since we adopted a shelter cat when I was 5 years old. And the more I’ve thought about those African wildcats, the more I’ve marveled at their evolutionary success. The species’ claim to fame is simple: The African wildcat is the ancestor of our beloved household pets. And despite changing very little, their descendants have become among the world’s two most popular companion animals. (Numbers are fuzzy, but the global population of cats and dogs approaches a billion for each.)
Clearly, the few evolutionary changes the domestic cat has made have been the right ones to wangle their way into people’s hearts and homes. How did they do it? I explored this question in my book “The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa.”
Why the African wildcat?
Big cats – like lions, tigers and pumas – are the attention-grabbing celebrities of the feline world. But of the 41 species of wild felines, the vast majority are about the size of a housecat. Few people have heard of the black-footed cat or the Borneo bay cat, much less the kodkod, oncilla or marbled cat. Clearly, the little-cat side of the feline family needs a better PR agent.
In theory, any of these species could have been the progenitor of the domestic cat, but recent DNA studies demonstrate unequivocally that today’s housecats arose from the African wildcat – specifically, the North African subspecies, Felis silvestris lybica.
Given the profusion of little pusses, why was the North African wildcat the one to give rise to our household companions?
In short, it was the right species in the right place at the right time. Civilization began in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago, when people first settled into villages and started growing food.
This area – spanning parts of modern-day Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Iran and more – is home to numerous small cats, including the caracal, serval, jungle cat and sand cat. But of these, the African wildcat is the one that to this day enters villages and can be found around humans.
Given these tendencies, it’s easy to envision what likely happened. People settled down and started raising crops, storing the excess for lean times. These granaries led to rodent population explosions. Some African wildcats – those with the least fear of humans – took advantage of this bounty and started hanging around. People saw the benefit of their presence and treated the cats kindly, perhaps giving them shelter or food. The boldest cats entered huts and perhaps allowed themselves to be petted – kittens are adorable! – and, voilà, the domestic cat was born.
Where exactly domestication occurred – if it was a single place and not simultaneously throughout the entire region – is unclear. But tomb paintings and sculptures show that by 3,500 years ago, domestic cats lived in Egypt. Genetic analysis – including DNA from Egyptian cat mummies – and archaeological data chart the feline diaspora. They moved northward through Europe (and ultimately to North America), south deeper into Africa and eastward to Asia. Ancient DNA even demonstrates that Vikings played a role in spreading felines far and wide.
There are only two ways to indisputably identify a wildcat. You can measure the size of its brain – housecats, like other domestic animals, have evolved reductions in the parts of the brain associated with aggression, fear and overall reactivity. Or you can measure the length of its intestines – longer in domestic cats to digest vegetable-based food provided by or scavenged from humans.
The most significant evolutionary changes during cat domestication involve their behavior. The common view that domestic cats are aloof loners couldn’t be further from the truth. When lots of domestic cats live together – in places where humans provide copious amounts of food – they form social groups very similar to lion prides. Composed of related females, these cats are very friendly – grooming, playing with and lying on top of each other, nursing each other’s kittens, even serving as midwives during birth.
To signal friendly intentions, an approaching cat raises its tail straight up, a trait shared with lions and no other feline species. As anyone who has lived with a cat knows, they use this “I want to be friends” message toward people as well, indicating that they include us in their social circle.
The sound of these meows has evolved during domestication to more effectively communicate with us. Listeners rate the wildcat’s call as more urgent and demanding (“Mee‑O‑O‑O‑O‑O‑W!”) compared with the domestic cat’s more pleasing (“MEE‑ow”). Scientists suggest that these shorter, higher-pitched sounds are more pleasing to our auditory system, perhaps because young humans have high-pitched voices, and domestic cats have evolved accordingly to curry human favor.
Cats similarly manipulate people with their purrs. When they want something – picture a cat rubbing against your legs in the kitchen while you open a can of wet food – they purr extra loudly. And this purr is not the agreeable thrumming of a content cat, but an insistent chainsaw br-rr-oom demanding attention.
Scientists digitally compared the spectral qualities of the two types of purrs and discovered that the major difference is that the insistent purr includes a component very similar to the sound of a human baby crying. People, of course, are innately attuned to this sound, and cats have evolved to take advantage of this sensitivity to get our attention.
Of course, that won’t surprise anyone who’s lived with a cat. Although cats are very trainable – they’re very food motivated – cats usually train us more than we train them. As the old saw goes, “Dogs have owners, cats have staff.”
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control is continuing to look for homes for a variety of great dogs.
The Clearlake Animal Control website continues to list 33 dogs for adoption.
This week’s dogs include “Boo,” a handsome male husky with a gray, black and white coat.
There also is “Dawn,” a female Labrador retriever mix with a black and white coat.
Another featured dog is “Sosa,” a 4-year-old American Staffordshire terrier mix.
The shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
For more information, call the shelter at 707-762-6227, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.
This week’s adoptable dogs are featured below.
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.
On Thursday, Gun Violence Prevention Task Force Chairman Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-04) led 109 members of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force in calling on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to schedule votes on gun violence prevention bills as soon as possible.
Although gun violence is the leading cause of death for American kids, the House of Representatives has yet to vote on even one gun violence prevention bill in this Congress.
“American children should not be scared to go to school. Parents should not be scared that when they send their kids off in the morning that it may be the last time they see them alive,” said Thompson, who represents Lake County in the House of Representatives.
“Gun violence demands our attention, yet the Republican House Leadership has not brought a single gun violence prevention bill up for a vote. The Gun Violence Prevention Task Force is calling on Speaker McCarthy to help us save lives and pass legislation that would keep our kids safe,” Thompson said.
Republicans canceled the last day of scheduled votes in July over disagreements within the Republican conference about how to proceed on a government funding bill.
Should the vote schedule fall apart again, the letter calls on House Republican Leadership to use that time to vote on life-saving gun violence prevention legislation, instead of canceling votes altogether.
The full text of the letter is below.
Dear Speaker McCarthy,
We are disappointed that Republican leadership cancelled votes in July with so many pressing issues facing our country. Foremost amongst those is the gun violence crisis that is the leading cause of death for children in America.
As Members of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, we call on you to schedule votes on gun violence prevention legislation as soon as possible this year. We also have a new standing request that should the vote schedule fall apart again, you would fill that time to vote on life-saving gun violence prevention legislation, instead of canceling votes altogether.
Gun violence is the leading cause of death of children in America since 2020. Last year, 1,686 children were killed and another 4,485 were injured by gun violence. Despite this preventable carnage, the House has yet to vote on even one gun violence prevention bill.
To save the lives of our kids, we only need the opportunity to vote on gun violence prevention legislation and the support from a tiny minority of the Republican Conference. For example, if only 20 Republicans, 10 in the House and 10 in the Senate voted for the Bipartisan Background Checks bill, we would have the votes to help prevent felons, domestic abusers, terrorists and people with serious mental health conditions from accessing guns.
The American people strongly support action on the gun violence crisis and the gun violence prevention laws that will keep their kids alive. A recent Fox News poll shows that 87 percent support universal background checks; 80 percent support red flag laws and 61 percent support banning assault weapons.
We reiterate our insistence that the House schedule votes on gun violence prevention legislation without further delay and also offer to quickly advance gun violence prevention legislation should other planned legislation be canceled again.
Thompson represents California’s Fourth Congressional District, which includes all or part of Lake, Napa, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo counties.
Shortly before the rover’s 11th anniversary on the Red Planet, its team helped guide it up a steep, slippery slope to examine meteor craters.
On Aug. 5, NASA’s Curiosity rover will notch its 11th year on Mars by doing what it does best: studying the Red Planet’s surface.
The intrepid bot recently investigated a location nicknamed “Jau” that is pockmarked with dozens of impact craters.
Scientists have rarely gotten a close-up view of so many Martian craters in one place. The largest is estimated to be at least as long as a basketball court, although most are much smaller.
Jau is a pit stop on the rover’s journey into the foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that was covered with lakes, rivers, and streams billions of years ago. Each layer of the mountain formed in a different era of Mars’ ancient climate, and the higher Curiosity goes, the more scientists learn about how the landscape changed over time.
The path up the mountain over the last several months required the most arduous climb Curiosity has ever made. There have been steeper climbs and riskier terrain, but the mission has never faced the trifecta of challenges posed by this slope: a sharp 23-degree incline, slippery sand, and wheel-size rocks.
This trifecta left the rover struggling through a half-dozen drives in May and June, vexing Curiosity’s drivers back on Earth.
“If you’ve ever tried running up a sand dune on a beach — and that’s essentially what we were doing — you know it’s hard, but there were boulders in there as well,” said Amy Hale, a Curiosity rover driver at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
How to drive a rover
Hale is one of 15 “rover planners” who write hundreds of lines of code to command Curiosity’s mobility system and robotic arm each day. (They don’t operate the rover in real time; instructions are sent to Mars the night before, and data comes back to Earth only after the rover has completed the work.)
These engineers collaborate with scientists to figure out where to direct the rover, what pictures to take, and which targets to study using the instruments on its 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm.
But rover planners are also constantly on the lookout for hazards. They have to write commands to steer around pointy rocks and minimize wear on Curiosity’s battered wheels. Geologists on the team use their field experience here on Earth to help look out for deep sand and unstable rock formations.
There’s even a role on the mission to gauge whether a canyon wall could obstruct radio communications with Earth.
Six-wheeled ascent
Curiosity was never in danger while climbing to Jau: The team doesn’t plan anything that could damage the rover, and the planners write commands so that Curiosity will stop moving if it encounters any surprises.
Unexpected stoppages — referred to as “faults” — can occur when the wheels slip too much or a wheel is raised too high by a large rock. On the route to Jau, the rover found itself in both scenarios on several occasions.
“We were basically playing fault bingo,” said Dane Schoelen, Curiosity’s strategic route planning lead at JPL. “Each day when we came in, we’d find out we faulted for one reason or another.”
Instead of continuing to struggle with the original course, Schoelen and his colleagues put together a lateral detour, eyeing a spot roughly 492 feet (150 meters) away where the incline leveled out.
At least, it seemed to: Planners rely on imagery from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to get a rough sense of the terrain, but images captured from space can’t show exactly how steep a slope is or whether boulders are there.
The detour would add a few weeks to the journey to Jau — unless the terrain was hiding more surprises. If that were the case, the detour might have been for nothing, and the team’s scientists would have to keep looking for another path up Mount Sharp.
Fortunately, the detour paid off, allowing Curiosity to crest the slope.
“It felt great to finally get over the ridge and see that amazing vista,” Schoelen said. “I get to look at images of Mars all day long, so I really get a sense of the landscape. I often feel like I’m standing right there next to Curiosity, looking back at how far it has climbed.”
Since the difficult ascent, Curiosity’s scientists have wrapped an investigation of the Jau crater cluster. Common on Mars, clusters can form when a meteor breaks up in the planet’s atmosphere or when fragments are tossed by a large, more distant meteoroid impact. Scientists want to understand how the relatively soft rocks of the salt-enriched terrain affected the way the craters formed and changed over time.
Despite all that Mars has thrown at Curiosity, the rover isn’t slowing down. It’ll soon be off again to explore a new area higher up on Mount Sharp.
Curiosity was built by JPL, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
In anticipation of another possible wet season with record rain and snowfall, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed an executive order that will expedite critical work like levee repairs and debris removal to help protect and prepare communities.
This year’s historic winter storms damaged levees and left debris in river channels that exacerbate the risk of flooding next winter — damaged levees provide less protection from high water flows, and debris and vegetation within river channels reduce capacity to move high water flows.
By acting now, the executive order allows affected communities to accelerate work to restore levee function and river channel capacity degraded by last winter’s storms and floods.
More specifically, the executive order:
• Streamlines public agencies’ emergency levee repair and debris removal work to address this past winter’s storms and prepare for next winter; • Applies to emergency levee repair and debris clearing impacted by this past winter’s storms, including: the San Joaquin River and tributaries, the Tulare Lake Basin and tributaries, the Salinas River and tributaries, the Pajaro River and tributaries, and other coastal streams between the Pajaro River and the Ventura River; • Suspends certain laws, regulations, and criteria in existing orders – conditioned on agencies complying with specified environmental and resource protection requirements – for emergency levee repair and debris removal projects. Suspensions include: • Lake and streambed alteration agreement laws and regulations implemented by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife; • Limiting provisions in State Water Board water quality certifications that would otherwise limit circumstances under which a public agency could rely on emergency regional general permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; • Waste discharge requirements laws and regulations implemented by the Water Boards for projects that do not require an Army Corps of Engineers emergency permit; • The California Environmental Quality Act. • Includes a number of common-sense conditions to protect the environment and natural resources, drawn from the existing regulatory expertise at the Department of Fish and Wildlife, Department of Water Resources, and the Water Boards.
This action builds on the series of measures Gov. Newsom has taken to protect communities from flooding while replenishing California’s groundwater and storage.
• Proclaimed a state of emergency in January mobilizing state government ahead of the winter storms, proclaimed a state of emergency in 53 counties to support response and recovery efforts, and activated the National Guard to support disaster response and relief; • At the governor’s request, President Biden issued a Presidential Emergency Declaration and a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration to bolster state and local recovery efforts; • Executive orders to expedite emergency flood preparation and response activities in the Tulare Lake Basin and San Joaquin River Basin, such as floodwater diversion, debris removal, and levee repairs; • Visited the Tulare Lake Basin to see flooding impacts firsthand, meet with community leaders, and emphasize the state’s commitment to supporting the counties impacted by flooding. • Announced $17.2 million to fortify the Corcoran Levee, protecting critical infrastructure, correctional and medical facilities, and more; • Committed over $500 million in the 2023-24 state budget to support flood response and projects to protect communities from future floods; • Executive orders in February and March to capture rain and floodwater for groundwater recharge, reservoir storage, and more. • Leveraging the more than $8.6 billion committed by Gov. Newsom and the Legislature in the last two budget cycles to build water resilience, the state is continuing to take aggressive action to prepare for the impacts of climate-driven extremes in weather on the state’s water supplies.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife Wildlife Officer Academy graduated 43 cadets today in Paradise, Butte County.
The academy is California Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, certified and offers training consistent with every law enforcement agency in California.
In 2008, CDFW partnered with Butte College to provide peace officer academy training for prospective wildlife officers. That partnership provided CDFW with a state-of-the-art POST-certified academy facility with nearly 50 years of police training history.
“One of the best days of the year for us is adding a graduating class of wildlife officers to CDFW’s Law Enforcement Division,” said David Bess, CDFW deputy director and chief of law enforcement. “It is a pleasure to see 43 eager graduates ready to support our mission to protect California’s natural resources and provide public safety through effective and responsive law enforcement.”
The newly sworn peace officers will soon begin a Field Training Program where they will apply their academy training under the immediate supervision of seasoned field training officer, or FTOs.
Field training with experienced FTOs is also mandated by POST to be sure new wildlife officers can apply the skills they learned during the academy to real life circumstances.
FTO is the final stage of formal training. Upon successful completion, these officers will begin patrolling California to protect the natural resources of this great state.
The wildlife officers will be deployed across the Law Enforcement Division’s programs: regular patrol, marine enforcement, investigation of petroleum spills and response, and cannabis enforcement, to name a few.
The Law Enforcement Division is hiring. For more information about becoming a wildlife officer, please visit www.wildlife.ca.gov/enforcement.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A former Middletown High School soccer coach and science teacher has been convicted of felony stalking and misdemeanor annoying or molesting a child for his treatment of students in a case that occurred two years ago.
The District Attorney’s Office originally charged Michael Antonio Dodd, 31, with 14 counts involving nine juvenile victims, both males and females, in the case, which originated in the summer of 2021 while Dodd was a Middletown Unified School District employee.
Had Dodd gone to trial, he would have faced one count of felony stalking, two counts of felony lewd and lascivious acts with a minor, eight misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting a minor, and three counts of misdemeanor simple battery, which is harmful or offensive touching.
He was held for trial following a January preliminary hearing, but in the spring Dodd reached a plea agreement with the District Attorney’s Office.
Dodd’s plea agreement called for him to be sentenced for felony stalking and two counts of misdemeanor annoying or molesting a child.
As a result, on June 5 Judge Andrew Blum sentenced Dood to two years probation, up to 120 days in the Lake County Jail and a requirement to register as a tier one sex offender, for which registration lasts for 10 years.
Judge Blum remanded Dodd into sentencing following the June 5 sentencing hearing. By this week, Dodd already had been released from the Lake County Jail due to half-time credits.
From June to September 2021, the time frame covered by the District Attorney’s Office’s charging document, Dodd — who came from out of the area — worked as a science teacher and boys soccer coach at Middletown High School.
The first day of school that year was Aug. 16. On Sept. 14, the Lake County Sheriff’s Ofifce received a report from a school staffer about Dodd’s inappropriate communications with a female student.
Three days later, on Sept. 17, 2021, Middletown Unified gave Dodd a letter of release, terminating him from his job based on the school’s own investigation into the allegations.
Initially, the sheriff’s investigation focused on one female juvenile victim, eventually increasing to a total of nine victims.
Deputy District Attorney Rich Watson said in a Friday interview that he charged the case very thoroughly and interviewed 20 students about Dodd’s behavior, which included touching and rubbing their shoulders, speaking to them inappropriately with sexual undertones, antagonizing them, gawking at them and being “just creepy.”
Dodd would call girls out of class to come to his classroom, where he would have them sit next to his desk and would rub their shoulders, Watson said.
The main victim was a teen girl who was the focus of Dodd’s attention, one he was grooming and with whom he had tried to have a relationship, but she stopped it. Watson said it was at that point that Dodd threatened the girl.
“He’s a felon now and a sex offener because of the totality” of his behavior, Watson said of Dodd.
Watson said he never would have considered allowing probation or dropping some of the more severe charges had he been able to prove that Dodd had done more than just touching the students’ shoulders. That’s why the lewd and lascivious charges were dismissed. Watson also noted that Dodd had no previous criminal history.
Before reaching the settlement agreement, Watson said he also spoke to the victims’ parents, making clear the plea agreement would accomplish goals including keeping Dodd away from children.
Watson credited the children involved for taking a stand against Dodd’s behavior, and the school district for acting swiftly to investigate and terminate him within 30 days of the start of school.
Hearing from victims
Due to schedule conflicts and to being called to serve on a jury in another case prosecuted by Watson at the same time as the Dodd case was coming to resolution, this reporter was unable to attend the Dodd sentencing or to speak to Watson about it in the weeks immediately afterward.
In order to report on the case’s outcome and the complete testimony from victims and their families, Lake County News requested the court reporter’s transcript of Dodd’s sentencing hearing. The publication received that document in mid-July.
During the June 5 sentencing, the grandmother of Dodd’s main victim said Dodd befriended high school girls and was even coming to her house to see her granddaughter.
Another time, when she was at the park, the woman said Dodd showed up with his dog and began telling her he was in love with her granddaughter. She said he held his head and told her “there’s all these demons in his head and that he doesn’t know what he’s going to do.” He also told her that with the demons going on in his head, “it’s kind of like I’m a pedophile.”
Dodd told the woman that he was filing divorce papers on his wife and that as soon as her granddaughter turned 18, “he was coming to our house and he was taking her. And then he said, ‘Or what are you going to do? Stop me with a shotgun?’”
The woman believed Dodd was capable of rape and murder, and told the court he had been following her granddaughter at school to try to get her to come to his classroom and do papers with him.
She warned the court that he is vindictive, that he had been driving by their home and that they had to put up cameras. “It’s awful. And nobody should have to go through this.”
Her granddaughter also spoke to the court. “I just want to say that I’m glad I spoke up along with the other kids so no one else has to go through this. I’m sorry,” the young woman said.
“It ruined so many of our senior and junior years to have to go through this, to the point where most of us can’t even walk into the classrooms that he was in, to where I feared for my safety going to school, to where I couldn’t see a truck that he drove without having a panic attack, to where most of these girls can’t even go play a sport that they love because he’s ruined it for so many of us,” she said.
She added, “It’s sad to say that people like this are in the world that we trusted as a teacher, a coach, and a role model, someone we’re supposed to look up to and go to to confide in things as a school. We can’t even do that.”
The victim said he had even threatened to drop her grades and fail her in class.
Another young woman who spoke to the court recounted how Dodd pulled her into a classroom to pour out his feelings to her about the main victim, offering to pay her $50 and buy her breakfast and coffee if she would go to the victim to ask how she felt about Dodd.
“He kept begging me to ask her, begging me. And I just — I didn’t know what to say. I was uncomfortable, and I’m still, you know, like shaky and disgusted by it. I feel as if I could have been the next victim,” she said.
That young woman told the court that Dodd had come to her home one night to speak to her about his plans to divorce his wife and his feelings about the victim while her mother was recording the encounter on their doorbell camera.
As soon as Dodd left, “that’s when I sat down and I cried and I told my mom everything about what happened and was going on,” she said.
During the June 5 hearing, Dodd’s defense attorney, Chance Oberstein of Laguna Niguel, said Dodd has a mental illness, that he went through a manic episode — his first — during the time period of the case and that he’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Watson told the court that the District Attorney’s Office entered into the agreement after having discussed it with the victims, and noted the agreement’s goals included that Dodd would be a convicted felon, that he would plead to felony stalking and be a registered sex offender.
“We spoke to 20 children to determine the severity of Mr. Dodd’s behavior and if it had been any more severe than what we had before us, there’s no way we would agree to probation. But we talked to all of those children. We talked to most of their parents, and they’re all in agreement, as far as my knowledge is, with who I spoke to, that our goals that we’ve set for these kids and to punish Mr. Dodd have been achieved,” Watson said.
He said the case was handled swiftly both by the children Dodd victimized and by the school district. “And I do feel that the negotiated disposition is appropriate because it was handled so swiftly and his access to the kids was ended.”
In his arguments, Oberstein told the court that Dodd is on medication that as of April had pulled him out of mania, led to him being more emotionally stable, and “he is making and maintaining great gains in functioning.”
Oberstein said Dodd’s doctor asked for him to be allowed alternative sentencing because incarceration “would surely be a huge setback with regard to his progress in treatment.” He also asked for Dodd to get community service as an alternative to jail time.
During sentencing, Judge Blum emphasized that there was no sexual contact between Dodd and the minor victims, otherwise, probation would have been out of the question.
Blum said Dodd cannot be a schoolteacher again, or work or volunteer in any capacity that caters to minors, and that he must enroll in and complete an approved sex treatment program.
Watson also asked for, and received, a no-contact order barring Dodd from interactions with the four main victims. After the hearing, Dodd was immediately taken into custody.
Dodd received four months in jail at half time, “And there is nothing I can do about that,” Watson said Friday.
Lauren Berlinn, spokesperson for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, told Lake County News that Dodd was released from the Lake County Jail on Thursday, Aug. 3. Berlinn said he was given 61 days of half-time credit and one day of credit from the courts for time previously served.
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.
What's up for August? See Saturn at dusk and dawn, the Perseid meteors return and a “super blue moon.”
In August, we've lost Venus and Mars from the evening sky, but we'll have great views of Saturn all night. Saturn reaches opposition this month, meaning it's directly opposite the Sun as seen from Earth.
Planets at opposition rise just after sunset and are visible until dawn, and it's when they appear at their biggest and brightest for the year. Look for the giant planet low in the eastern sky around 9 p.m. by mid-month, appearing a bit higher each evening as August continues.
On the morning of Aug. 3, Saturn appears just a couple of finger widths apart from the nearly full Moon. Find them in the west before sunrise.
The Moon then makes a nice pairing with the Pleiades star cluster on the morning of the 9th, with Jupiter hanging nearby. And then the Moon has a super-close meetup with the reddish star Antares — brightest star in the constellation Scorpius — on the evening of Aug. 24.
August brings one of the best known annual meteor showers, the Perseids. And this year the stage is set for a good show, as the peak night — Aug. 12 and into Aug. 13 — is near the new moon.
The meteors are bits of dust — most no larger than sand grains — that originate from comet Swift-Tuttle. Earth sweeps through the comet's debris trail every year about this same time, resulting in the annual shower.
The radiant — the point in the sky where the meteors appear to originate — is toward the northeast, appearing in-between the upside down “W” of constellation Cassiopeia and bright star Capella.
Observing the Perseids is easy — just find yourself a safe, dark spot to lie down with your feet pointing roughly toward the northeast, and look straight up. The best time to view them is between midnight and dawn, as the radiant rises higher in the sky. Meteor activity likely will be at its greatest in the hour preceding dawn.
Now, the crescent moon also rises in the couple of hours before dawn, but it's only about 7% illuminated, and so it shouldn't pose a significant problem for viewing the meteors. You might also see a few meteors in the early morning hours during the week before and after the peak.
August begins and ends with a full moon, making for a special occurrence that only happens every couple of years. You see, a second full moon in a single calendar month is commonly called a “blue moon.” They happen every 2 to 3 years because the Moon's monthly cycle is just a bit shorter than the average length of a month. So eventually a full moon will happen at the beginning of a month, with enough days left for a complete lunar cycle. When that happens, we get a blue moon.
But there's more! The Aug. 30 blue moon is also a supermoon. The moon's orbit isn't a perfect circle, so sometimes it's a little farther away from Earth and sometimes closer. At its closest point, called perigee, it's 14% closer than at its farthest.
About three to four times a year, the full moon phase happens to coincide with the Moon reaching perigee, and we call that event a supermoon. While it technically appears a little bit bigger (and a tad brighter) than the average full moon, the difference is not super noticeable to the eye.
The combination of these two special full moons, making for a “super blue moon,” occurs about every 10 years, on average — though the time between any two occurrences can vary from two months to two decades or more.
So enjoy this month's two full moons. And while the second one won't appear supersized, or any bluer than usual, now you know what makes it special.
Stay up to date with all of NASA's missions to explore the solar system and beyond at nasa.gov.
Preston Dyches works for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Based on my experience researching urban planning and street design for the past three decades, I know that U.S. cities are primarily vehicle-centered rather than human-centered. Rules established in the 1920s govern how people use vehicles in public streets, and other governmental controls tell manufacturers how big those vehicles can be.
The U.S. has not moved as quickly as other countries to prioritize the safety of people outside of cars, especially as cars have grown larger and heavier. As a consequence, Americans are paying the price in lives lost, skyrocketing public health costs and reduced mobility.
Larger, heavier and deadlier
Data clearly shows that since 2008, cars and trucks sold in the U.S. have been continually getting bigger. The Department of Transportation’s corporate average fuel economy standards have constrained overall gasoline consumption but have also led to an increase in vehicle size.
That’s because these standards have two sets of rules: one for cars and a looser set for light trucks. As a result, automakers have built more sport utility vehicles and light trucks, as well as cars designed to meet light truck standards, like the Subaru Outback. For almost a decade, they have increasingly moved away from producing small cars and sedans.
Modern auto showrooms are dominated by sport utility vehicles, minivans and pickup trucks. According to 2022 data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, three-quarters of new vehicles produced in the U.S. are light trucks.
Those large vehicles create severe safety hazards on neighborhood city streets for children or adults who might be walking or cycling. Because these vehicles are taller, they are more likely to strike people at higher points and produce head or neck injuries rather than leg injuries. Their larger frames worsen visibility for drivers, especially when a vehicle is turning.
Until now, the U.S. has not enacted regulations that require car manufacturers to consider the safety of anyone outside of cars. Now, however, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing to add information to its crash test ratings measuring how well cars protect pedestrians in crashes. For example, bumpers and hoods could be redesigned to bend more easily and absorb more energy if a vehicle strikes a person.
But as currently proposed, pedestrian safety would not be factored into the overall five-star safety rating. A vehicle could receive a failing grade for protecting pedestrians yet still earn a five-star safety rating overall.
People deserve to safely travel on public streets and in parking lots. In my view, the quickest and most effective way to tackle car bloat is to transform social expectations for the shape and size of vehicles. Several European cities show how this kind of shift can happen.
A time for local action
Amsterdam and Copenhagen are widely viewed as models for using public space in ways that prioritize people – but they weren’t always that way. Starting in the 1970s, grassroots movements in bothcities pressed officials to reduce the dominance of cars and make streets safer for the public. These movements initially were slow to catch on but gained support over time.
Today, similar initiatives are moving forward in cities across France and Germany. Even traditionally car-centric European cities, such as Brussels and Ghent, are increasingly adopting human-focused policies by designating where cars, especially large cars, can and cannot travel.
As a visiting professor in the Netherlands, a Fulbright scholar to Italy and a lecturer across Germany and Poland, I have seen the benefits of these initiatives close at hand. I’ve also learned that it will require public action to create support for such changes in the U.S.
The goal is to modify the design of neighborhood streets and parking areas in ways that prioritize pedestrians, bicycles and new forms of personal transport like microcars. Federal survey data shows that nearly half of trips that Americans drive are shorter than four miles (6.5 kilometers). Ideally, people can be discouraged from using large passenger vehicles for most of this type of travel.
What communities can do
Streets and roads are local public spaces. Therefore, local officials and citizens have important roles to play in mitigating escalating car size in their community.
Some policymakers are proposing to rein in large vehicles through tax policies, such as weight-based registration fees. But measures like this won’t avert the emerging safety crisis in the near term. Rather, I believe this kind of broad cultural shift requires collective action, starting at the local level with street design reform.
In my view, communities seeking to discourage the predominance of oversize vehicles and encourage use of smaller, lighter and slower vehicles could consider taking such steps as:
Using posts or bollards, which can be removable, to limit vehicle access to commercial areas and neighborhoods where pedestrians, bikes and smaller cars get priority.
Limiting or ending vehicle access to streets near schools and economically vibrant commercial districts, either permanently or at high-use times of day.
How would such steps make people safer? Ask communities around Boston, which have cut several accident-prone four-lane roads down to two lanes each, reducing traffic speeds and crashes and creating more green space. Or those in the Atlanta suburb of Peachtree City, which has used parking lots and street space to augment a network of more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) of paved paths for walkers, bikers and registered golf carts.
Repurposing space in streets and parking areas requires city governments and residents to emphasize the public right of way and view street space as a place to devise solutions. There is ample evidence that doing so will make U.S. communities safer.