LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has many more adult cats and kittens waiting to be adopted this week.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm for information on visiting or adopting.
The following cats at the shelter have been cleared for adoption.
‘Ozzy’
“Ozzy” is a 2-year-old Siamese cat.
He is in cat room kennel No. A3, ID No. LCAC-A-4555.
Male domestic medium hair
This 3-year-old male domestic medium hair cat has a gray coat.
He is in cat room kennel No. 13, ID No. LCAC-A-4559.
Female domestic longhair cat
This 1-year-old old female domestic longhair cat has a gray coat.
She is in cat room kennel No. 56, ID No. LCAC-A-4556.
‘Sonny’
“Sonny” is a 2-year-old male orange tabby with a short coat.
He is in cat room kennel No. 57b, ID No. LCAC-A-4372.
Male Siamese kitten
This 3-month-old male Siamese kitten has a medium length white coat and blue eyes.
He is in cat room kennel No. 60a, ID No. LCAC-A-4553.
Male domestic medium hair
This 3-month-old male domestic medium hair has a gray coat.
He is in cat room kennel No. 60b, ID No. LCAC-A-4552.
‘Halo’
“Halo” is a 3-year-old male domestic shorthair cat with a gray tabby coat.
He is in kennel No. 77a, ID No. LCAC-A-4466.
‘Wednesday’
“Wednesday” is a 3-year-old female domestic shorthair cat with a gray tabby coat.
She is in kennel No. 77b, ID No. LCAC-A-4463.
Female domestic medium hair
This 1-year-old female domestic medium hair cat has a gray coat.
She is in cat room kennel No. 107a, ID No. LCAC-A-4558.
Female Siamese kitten
This 3-month-old female Siamese kitten has a medium length white coat and blue eyes.
She is in cat room kennel No. 107b, ID No. LCAC-A-4554.
Male Siamese cat
This 2-year-old male Siamese cat has a white coat and blue eyes.
He is in cat room kennel No. A118, ID No. LCAC-A-4557.
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 Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The big idea
Psychological trauma from extreme weather and climate events, such as wildfires, can have long-term impacts on survivors’ brains and cognitive functioning, especially how they process distractions, my team’s new research shows.
Climate change is increasingly affecting people around the world, including through extreme heat, storm damage and life-threatening events like wildfires. In previous research, colleagues and I showed that in the aftermath of the 2018 fire that destroyed the town of Paradise, California, chronic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression were highly prevalent in the affected communities more than six months after the disaster.
We also found a graded effect: People whose homes or families were directly affected by fire showed greater mental health harm than those where who were indirectly effected, meaning people who witnessed the event in their community but did not have a personal loss.
In the new study, published Jan. 18, 2023, our team at the Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, or NEATLabs, at the University of California San Diego, wanted to understand whether the symptoms of climate change-related trauma translate to changes in cognitive functioning – the mental processes involved in memory, learning, thinking and reasoning.
We evaluated subjects’ cognitive functioning across a range of abilities, including attention; response inhibition – the ability to not respond impulsively; working memory – the ability to maintain information in mind for short periods of time; and interference processing – the ability to ignore distractions. We also measured their brain function while they performed cognitive tasks, using brain wave recordings obtained from electroencephalography, or EEG.
The study included three groups of individuals: people who were directly exposed to the fire, people who were indirectly exposed, and a control group with no exposure. The groups were well matched for age and gender.
We found that both groups of people exposed to the fire, either directly or indirectly, dealt with distractions less accurately than the control group.
We also found differences in the brain processes underlying these cognitive differences. People who were exposed to the wildfire had greater frontal lobe activity while dealing with distractions. The frontal lobe is the center for the brain’s higher-level functions. Frontal brain activity can be a marker for cognitive effort, suggesting that people exposed to the fires may be having more difficulty processing distractions and compensating by exerting more effort.
Why it matters
With climate change fueling more disasters, it is incredibly important to understand its impacts on human health, including mental health. Resilient mental health is what allows us to recover from traumatic experiences. How humans experience and mentally deal with climate catastrophes sets the stage for our future lives.
There is much work to be done to understand if the effects we found are replicable in large sample studies. In this work, we focused on a total of 75 study participants. Scientists also need to understand how these effects evolve as climate disasters like wildfires occur more often.
We are also pursuing research with community partners to implement interventions that can help alleviate some the impacts we observed on brain and cognitive functioning. There is no one-size-fits-all solution – each community must find the resiliency solutions that work best in their environmental context. As scientists, we can help them understand the causes and point them to solutions that are most effective in improving human health.
Disability representation is slowly increasing in books geared toward children and teens.
In 2019 the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – a library that allows teachers, librarians and researchers to view books before deciding which ones to buy – found that only 3.4% of books it received from publishers included a character with a disability.
The CCBC website recently added a diversity statistics book search with categories for physical, cognitive and psychiatric disabilities or conditions. In 2022, the center received 165 books that included a character with a disability, up from 126 in 2019.
As an academic librarian who also has a disability, I’m happy to recommend the following five children’s books that treat disability as a part of life and living.
Moose loves her girl Zara – and she hates saying goodbye. When Zara goes to school, Moose wants to go too and keeps showing up, even though dogs aren’t allowed. What will Zara, her parents, the principal, her teacher and the other kids in Zara’s class do?
This fun picture book is perfect for preschoolers and kindergartners. While Zara uses a wheelchair, her disability isn’t the focus of the story. Readers will have fun seeing what Moose is up to this time and learn that sometimes dogs can go to school.
2. Kelly Fritsch, Anne McGuire, Eduardo Trejos, “We Move Together” (2021)
All bodies are different – whether disabled or nondisabled – and everyone matters. These are the themes of this easy reader. With its vibrant illustrations, simple text and portrayals of a wide variety of people, “We Move Together” is a great introduction to the concepts of community, disability and accessibility for readers in kindergarten through second grade, while older readers can learn more about accessibility and disability rights in the glossary.
3. Darren Lebeuf, Ashley Barron, “My City Speaks” (2021)
A girl who is blind and her dad explore the city and its sounds. They wait at a crosswalk, play in the park, take a bus, avoid a rainstorm and eat ice cream. Words and pictures help the reader feel the rhythms of the city. Readers in preschool through second grade will enjoy this story because of its colorful illustrations and rhythmic text.
Nat Beacon is the new girl in school with a talent for wheelchair racing, but when the 13-year-old gets the chance to audition for a summer production of the musical “Wicked,” she knows the theater is where she belongs. How does she tell her parents?
This novel for readers in fifth, sixth and seventh grades explores themes of independence, friendship and first love.
Daisy and Noah are two of the best musicians in their high school orchestra and dream of attending Juilliard, the prestigious performing arts school in New York City. When their performance of an original piece goes viral, they have to deal with the world’s interpretation of them and their relationship.
This rom-com of a novel combines disability representation with themes of friendship and romance. Great for readers in grades nine to 12.
For more books featuring characters with disabilities, check out the American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award. For a wide variety of diverse titles, see We Need Diverse Books.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lakeport Planning Commission has given approval to a new affordable housing apartment complex project but heard concerns from neighbors about how another of the developer’s projects was managed during construction, and also gave the OK to a permit for residential use in connection to a downtown business.
At its Jan. 11 meeting, the commission unanimously approved zoning and general plan amendment changes and other necessary resolutions for AMG & Associates LLC’s “affordable housing community,” to be located on a 3.7-acre site at 519 S. Smith St.
The 40-unit project will be located next to the Phase I and II of the Martin Street Apartments, also built by AMG. The developer’s other projects in the city include Bella Vista senior housing complex and a 40-unit senior apartment complex planned for Bevins Street.
City Associate Planner Victor Fernandez said the 40 dwelling units will be broken down into eight units over five multifamily residential buildings.
Fernandez said there will be 10 adaptable units, six units will be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and four units will be sensory impaired units. There also will be a 2,469-square-foot community center, a playground and half basketball court.
He said the development will be accessed from a driveway off S. Smith Street and an internal roadway to connect to phase two of the Martin Street Apartments to the north. There will be 78 parking spaces, including eight that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, plus new stormwater infrastructure.
Commissioner Kip Knorr applauded the developer, noting it’s a difficult building site and that they did an excellent job mitigating issues in the first phase.
However, two neighbors who spoke criticized how the developer’s contractors had behaved on the previous projects.
They described damage to water lines, a substandard retaining wall built to front a neighboring property, a stolen wrought iron gate, people walking through or along their properties, road grinders that made a home shake, fencing on their property that the contractors wouldn’t move, flat tires from nails left behind by the builders, construction that begins early in the morning, concerns about privacy and dismissive contractors.
Commissioner Kurt Combs said he liked the previous projects and was sorry about the neighbors. “But that’s almost an issue of the contractors and how it was handled” and not density or things the commission has any control over. As such, he wanted to see the project move forward.
Commissioner Scott Barnett wanted to know who would make sure to take care of the neighbors.
City Manager Kevin Ingram said he would look into the matter.
Commissioner Nathan Maxman also wanted to ask the developer to put up a visual screen on the south portion of the site for neighbor privacy.
Jacob Soroudi, an AMG representative who attended the meeting via Zoom, said he was disheartened to hear the statements from the neighbors. He said he would pass along his personal contact information so the neighbors could reach out to him directly about complaints. Soroudi said he also would talk to the contractors.
Commission Chair Mark Mitchell, who is a contractor, said hearing about the issues is “extremely irritating,” and he hoped the developer would make amends with the neighbors.
Soroudi said he doesn’t like to hear that their contractors are misbehaving.
Maxman asked again about placing trees or a visual screen for privacy. Soroudi said he has to go to his team as there is a cost to it and that he could get back to the city.
The commission unanimously approved five separate motions — to approve a mitigated negative declaration, a general plan amendment, a recommendation to the City Council for a zoning change, a density bonus and a resolution recommending the Lakeport City Council approve an amendment to the land use designation plan of the Lakeport General Plan.
Ingram said he expects the project will go to the City Council on Feb. 21. All affected property owners will get notices.
Also at the meeting, the commission approved an application from Lisa Tomassini for a use permit to allow a residential use in conjunction with a commercial business at 341 N Main St.
Tommasini wants to convert a portion of the second floor to mixed use as a residence. Plans include adding a bathroom.
Planning staff determined the proposal is in conformance with general plan provisions for the central business district, which requires one parking spot. They noted there isn’t enough space for off site parking, which also wouldn’t conform with preservation of a historic building.
Commissioners said they liked seeing the combination of work and living space coming back.
During the meeting, Lake County News asked if the city was seeing more interest in a move to combining residential with business uses, and if this was a return to historic use in the city’s downtown.
Ingram said they have had a couple of similar requests in the downtown area, as well as some vacation rentals, although he’s not sure it’s enough to be a trend yet.
“It too brings a different life to downtown, having residents there full-time,” Ingram said. “It’s definitely something that we would like to see continue and call a trend at some point.”
Ingram said he didn’t know the age of the building, but believed it likely did have residential uses at some point.
Maxman, who said it was a great idea and he would like to see more of it, made the motions for a categorical exemption to the California Environmental Quality Act and a finding that the use permit meets the requirements of the zoning ordinance and is consistent with the general plan.
The commission approved both motions unanimously.
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.
After 30 years in orbit, mission operations for the joint NASA-JAXA Geotail spacecraft have ended, after the failure of the spacecraft’s remaining data recorder.
Since its launch on July 24, 1992, Geotail orbited Earth, gathering an immense dataset on the structure and dynamics of the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic bubble.
Geotail was originally slated for a four-year run, but the mission was extended several times due to its high-quality data return, which contributed to over a thousand scientific publications.
While one of Geotail’s two data recorders failed in 2012, the second continued to work until experiencing an anomaly on June 28, 2022. After attempts to remotely repair the recorder failed, the mission operations were ended on November 28, 2022.
“Geotail has been a very productive satellite, and it was the first joint NASA-JAXA mission,” said Don Fairfield, emeritus space scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and NASA’s first project scientist for Geotail until his retirement in 2008. “The mission made important contributions to our understanding of how the solar wind interacts with Earth’s magnetic field to produce magnetic storms and auroras.”
With an elongated orbit, Geotail sailed through the invisible boundaries of the magnetosphere, gathering data on the physical process at play there to help understand how the flow of energy and particles from the Sun reach Earth.
Geotail made many scientific breakthroughs, including helping scientists understand how quickly material from the Sun passes into the magnetosphere, the physical processes at play at the magnetosphere’s boundary, and identifying oxygen, silicon, sodium, and aluminum in the lunar atmosphere.
The mission also helped identify the location of a process called magnetic reconnection, which is a major conveyor of material and energy from the Sun into the magnetosphere and one of the instigators of the aurora.
This discovery laid the way for the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, or MMS, which launched in 2015.
Over the years, Geotail collaborated with many of NASA’s other space missions including MMS, Van Allen Probes, Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms mission, Cluster, and Wind.
With an orbit that took it as far as 120,000 miles from Earth at times, Geotail helped provide complementary data from remote parts of the magnetosphere to give scientists a complete picture of how events seen in one area affect other regions. Geotail also paired with observations on the ground to confirm the location and mechanisms of how aurora form.
Although Geotail is done gathering new data, the scientific discoveries aren’t over. Scientists will continue to study Geotail’s data in the coming years.
Mara Johnson-Groh works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
All living trusts, at a minimum, have one common denominator: avoiding probate. Beyond that, living trusts are not created equal.
Let us discuss some of the estate planning features that a well drafted living trust often contains.
A well drafted living trust administers a person’s assets during incapacity (prior to death) and at death, without any court supervision (e.g., conservatorships and probate), for the benefit of the settlor who created the trust and his or her loved ones. Flexibility to deal with unforeseen events can be beneficial.
First, a trust should provide for the care of the settlor and the settlor’s loved ones if the settlor is incapacitated.
Does the trust provide authority and instructions for the settlor’s personal care in the event of the settlor’s incapacity?
A trust, as relevant, may say whether the successor trustee pays for in home care services to allow the settlor to remain at home as long as possible; whether the trustee allows an adult child to move in (rent free) to care for the settlor; and whether the trustee pays to relocate the settlor to live with family or at an assisted living facility.
Does the trust contain authority and instructions for the care of the settlor’s dependents if the settlor is incapacitated?
A trust, as relevant, may say whether the trustee pays for all or some of the living expenses of the settlor’s spouse; whether the trustee continues to support an adult child; and whether the trustee continues to care for the settlor’s pets.
Second, a trust should provide a well thought out disposition of the settlor’s trust estate at the settlor’s death.
Does the trust adequately address the varied needs and life circumstances of its beneficiaries?
A well drafted trust often provides discretion to the trustee to administer the trust based on future conditions as they exist at the time of administration.
Does the trust provide the trustee with express instructions or with discretion to use their own judgment to administer the inheritance of a beneficiary who is a minor; to administer the inheritance of a beneficiary who receives needs based government benefits; to administer the inheritance of a beneficiary who has serious creditor problems; or to administer the inheritance of a beneficiary who cannot manage their assets.
A trust, as relevant, may say whether the inheritances of such beneficiaries are subject to further (ongoing) trust management over part or all of their lifetime.
A trust may also allow the trustee to administer a beneficiary’s inheritance to purchase services and/or assets for the health, education, maintenance and support of a beneficiary and without distribution cash to the beneficiary.
Does the trust provide for the proper contingency planning in the event that a named beneficiary does not survive?
A trust should name or describe alternative beneficiaries in the event that a beneficiary is not alive to inherit and provide whether the alternative beneficiary receives their inheritance outright or in further trust.
Does the trust allow the appointment of an alternative successor trustee in the event that all persons nominated in the trust fail to serve as trustee?
A trust can provide a mechanism to appoint an alternative successor trustee without a court petition. That is, the trust may allow the beneficiaries to appoint a trustee or allow a person named as a power holder to appoint a trustee.
Does the trust include, as relevant, properly worded disinheritance and no-contest clauses? A disinheritance clause is particularly relevant when the settlor is not gifting anything to an heir.
Consider a parent who is excluding one or more of their children as beneficiaries. Consider a parent who is making an unequal distribution on their assets amongst their children. Is there a no-contest clause to discourage the less favored children from contesting the unequal distribution of the estate.
The foregoing illustrates how a well drafted living trust may avoid some unforeseen and unintended pitfalls. This is not legal advice. Consult an attorney.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235.
The planet continued its warming trend in 2022, with last year ranking as the sixth-warmest year on record since 1880, according to an analysis by scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI.
Below are highlights from NOAA’s 2022 annual global climate report:
Climate by the numbers
Earth’s average land and ocean surface temperature in 2022 was 1.55 degrees F (0.86 of a degree C) above the 20th-century average of 57.0 degrees F (13.9 degrees C) — the sixth highest among all years in the 1880-2022 record.
It also marked the 46th-consecutive year (since 1977) with global temperatures rising above the 20th-century average. The 10-warmest years on record have all occurred since 2010, with the last nine years (2014-2022) among the 10-warmest years.
The 2022 Northern Hemisphere surface temperature was also the sixth highest in the 143-year record at 1.98 degrees F (1.10 degrees C) above average. The Southern Hemisphere surface temperature for 2022 was the seventh highest on record at 1.10 degrees F (0.61 of a degree C) above average.
2022 as ranked by other scientific organizations
NASA scientists conducted a separate but similar analysis, determining that 2022 ranked as Earth’s fifth-warmest year on record, tied with 2015. The European Commission's Copernicus ranked 2022 as the globe’s fifth-warmest year on record.
An annotated map of the world plotted with the year's most significant climate events.
Other notable climate findings and events
Global ocean heat content (OHC) hit a record high: The upper ocean heat content, which addresses the amount of heat stored in the upper 2,000 meters of the ocean, was record high in 2022, surpassing the previous record set in 2021. The four highest OHCs have all occurred in the last four years (2019-2022).
Polar sea ice ran low: The 2022 annual Antarctic sea ice extent (coverage) was at a near-record low at 4.09 million square miles. Only the year 1987 had a smaller annual extent. During 2022, each month had an extent that ranked among the five smallest for their respective months, while the months of February, June, July and August had their lowest monthly extent on record.
In the Arctic, the average annual sea ice extent was approximately 4.13 million square miles — the 11th-smallest annual average sea ice extent in the 1979-2022 record, according to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Global tropical cyclones were near average: A total of 88 named storms occurred across the globe in 2022, which was near the 1991-2020 average. Of those, 40 reached tropical cyclone strength (winds of 74 mph or higher) and 17 reached major tropical cyclone strength (winds of 111 mph or higher). The global accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) — an integrated metric of the strength, frequency and duration of tropical storms — was the fourth lowest since 1981.
December 2022 was warm: The average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces in December was 1.44 degrees F (0.80 of a degree C) above the 20th-century average. This ranks as the eighth-warmest December in the 143-year NOAA record.
Regionally, Africa tied 2016 for its second-warmest December on record. South America’s December ranked fourth warmest on record, while Europe saw its 10th warmest. Although North America and Asia both had an above-average December temperature, neither ranked among the 20 warmest on record.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — The California Arts Council has announced a grant award of $14,250 to Lake County Arts Council as part of its Arts Integration program in its second round of funding for 2022.
Lake County Arts Council, in partnership with Lake County Office of Education, will provide a series of Arts Integration Trainings highlighting multiple artforms for Lake County teachers, providing materials and insight on how teachers can easily apply each artform into their classroom.
Approximately 20 Arts Integration classes will be held over 2023-24 calendar year. The workshops will be held in various locations around the county.
Arts integration fosters diverse representation in classrooms; by centering the teaching around student thinking and the arts, focus will be on the student experience and connections, as opposed to the teacher's culture and expertise.
“I am very excited to see this program take off. More commonly we see funding for arts projects, not necessarily teaching moments,” said Barbara Clark, executive director for the Lake County Arts Council. “This one is special because it gives us the opportunity to teach basic concepts that will allow teachers to take control of that art form and use it how they see is most appropriate for their classroom.”
Lake County Arts Council was featured as part of a larger announcement from the California Arts Council, with grant awards for its Cycle B programming totaling more than $41 million across more than 900 grants supporting nonprofit organizations and units of government throughout the state.
All told, the projected sum of grants to be awarded for 2022’s regular program funding cycle is more than $72 million — the biggest annual investment in the California Arts Council’s 46-year history, largely supported by the $40 million one-time boost in support for the agency’s creative youth and arts education development programs.
“The resilience and creativity of California’s arts and cultural field in these last three years has been remarkable,” said California Arts Council Director Jonathan Moscone. “We are proud to be able to support the great work that California's artists, culture bearers and cultural workers are doing within our communities as an indelible part of our state’s identity.”
Cycle B’s programs include five funding opportunities for arts education and creative youth development, and related arts workforce development. Additionally, the cycle offered funding opportunities for administering organizations to regrant funds for folk and traditional arts and individual artists fellowship programs.
Operational support for statewide and regional arts service organizations and networks was also available during this round of grant funding.
In the blazing upper atmosphere of the Sun, a team of scientists have found new clues that could help predict when and where the Sun’s next flare might explode.
Using data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, researchers from NorthWest Research Associates, or NWRA, identified small signals in the upper layers of the solar atmosphere, the corona, that can help identify which regions on the Sun are more likely to produce solar flares — energetic bursts of light and particles released from the Sun.
They found that above the regions about to flare, the corona produced small-scale flashes — like small sparklers before the big fireworks.
This information could eventually help improve predictions of flares and space weather storms — the disrupted conditions in space caused by the Sun’s activity.
Space weather can affect Earth in many ways: producing auroras, endangering astronauts, disrupting radio communications, and even causing large electrical blackouts.
Scientists have previously studied how activity in lower layers of the Sun’s atmosphere — such as the photosphere and chromosphere — can indicate impending flare activity in active regions, which are often marked by groups of sunspots, or strong magnetic regions on the surface of the Sun that are darker and cooler compared to their surroundings. The new findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, add to that picture.
“We can get some very different information in the corona than we get from the photosphere, or ‘surface’ of the Sun,” said KD Leka, lead author on the new study who is also a designated foreign professor at Nagoya University in Japan. “Our results may give us a new marker to distinguish which active regions are likely to flare soon and which will stay quiet over an upcoming period of time.”
For their research, the scientists used a newly created image database of the Sun’s active regions captured by SDO. The publicly available resource, described in a companion paper also in The Astrophysical Journal, combines over eight years of images taken of active regions in ultraviolet and extreme-ultraviolet light.
Led by Karin Dissauer and engineered by Eric L. Wagner, the NWRA team’s new database makes it easier for scientists to use data from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, or AIA, on SDO for large statistical studies.
“It's the first time a database like this is readily available for the scientific community, and it will be very useful for studying many topics, not just flare-ready active regions,” Dissauer said.
The NWRA team studied a large sample of active regions from the database, using statistical methods developed by team member Graham Barnes. The analysis revealed small flashes in the corona preceded each flare. These and other new insights will give researchers a better understanding of the physics taking place in these magnetically active regions, with the goal of developing new tools to predict solar flares.
“With this research, we are really starting to dig deeper,” Dissauer said. “Down the road, combining all this information from the surface up through the corona should allow forecasters to make better predictions about when and where solar flares will happen.”
Mara Johnson-Groh works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has an interesting and diverse lineup of dogs waiting for new homes.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Akita, Alaskan malamute, American blue heeler, Belgian Malinois, German shepherd, hound, husky, Jack Russell terrier, Labrador retriever, mastiff, pit bull, pointer, shepherd 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.
Lab-pit bull mix puppy
This female Labrador retriever-pit bull mix puppy has a short black coat with white markings.
She is in kennel No. 2, ID No. LCAC-A-4451.
Female pit bull terrier
This 6-month-old female pit bull terrier has a short red and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 3, ID No. LCAC-A-4565.
Female pointer mix
This 3-year-old female pointer mix has a tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 4, ID No. LCAC-A-4520.
American blue heeler-hound
This 5-month-old female American blue heeler-hound has a short brown and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 6a, ID No. LCAC-A-4521.
American blue heeler-hound
This 5-month-old female American blue heeler-hound has a short brindle coat.
She is in kennel No. 6b, ID No. LCAC-A-4522.
Female German shepherd
This 10-month-old female German shepherd has a black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 8, ID No. LCAC-A-4448.
Male American blue heeler-hound
This 5-month-old male American blue heeler-hound has a short brindle coat.
He is in kennel No. 9a, ID No. LCAC-A-4519.
Male American blue heeler-hound
This 5-month-old male American blue heeler-hound has a short brown coat.
He is in kennel No. 9b, ID No. LCAC-A-4523.
Female Belgian Malinois
This 6-month-old female Belgian Malinois has a short black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 10, ID No. LCAC-A-4447.
Male mastiff mix
This 1-year-old male mastiff mix has a short black coat.
He is in kennel No. 11, ID No. LCAC-A-4566.
Male Akita-shepherd mix
This 2-year-old male Akita-shepherd mix has a long brown coat.
He is in kennel No. 12, ID No. LCAC-A-4539.
Male Akita-shepherd
This 2-year-old male Akita-shepherd has a short fawn-colored coat.
He is in kennel No. 13, ID No. LCAC-A-4538.
Male pit bull terrier
This 1-year-old male pit bull terrier has a short black coat.
He is in kennel No. 15, ID No. LCAC-A-4494.
Female husky
This 1-year-old female husky has a black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 16, ID No. LCAC-A-4562.
‘Missy’
“Missy” is a 6-year-old female pit bull terrier with a short brown coat.
She is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-4548.
‘Malachi’
“Malachi” is a 4-year-old male Alaskan malamute with a long black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 18, ID No. LCAC-A-4434.
‘Louie’
“Louie” is an 8-year-old male Jack Russell terrier with a long white coat.
He is in kennel No. 19, ID No. LCAC-A-4550.
‘Tyson’
“Tyson” is a handsome male husky with a red and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-4344.
Female pit bull terrier
This 2-year-old female pit bull terrier has a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-4484.
Male Doberman pinscher
This 3-year-old male Doberman pinscher has a short brown and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 25, ID No. LCAC-A-4543.
Male pit bull
This 3-year-old male pit bull has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 26, ID No. LCAC-A-4445.
American blue heeler/hound mix
This 5-month-old female American blue heeler/hound mix has a short brindle and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 28, ID No. LCAC-A-4524.
Male German shepherd
This 7-year-old male German shepherd with a black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-4561.
Female German shepherd
This 1-year-old female German shepherd has a black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 30, ID No. LCAC-A-4486.
‘Diesel’
“Diesel” is a 2-year-old male pit bull terrier with a short white coat with black markings.
He’s in kennel No. 31, ID No. LCAC-A-4549.
Male German shepherd
This 8-year-old male German shepherd has a black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-4518.
Male terrier
This 1-year-old male terrier has a tan and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-4470.
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 Rotary Club of Lakeport will hold its third annual drive-through Crab Feed and Online Auction at the Lake County Fairgrounds on Saturday, Feb. 18, from 4:30 to 6 p.m.
The theme of this year’s event will be “Under the Sea.”
Tickets, which are available on the club website, cost $70 per person.
That will get you a complete crab dinner featuring two pounds of hot cracked crab and a pound of fresh shrimp, as well as tossed salad and warm bread rolls.
Also available for an additional $20 is a quart of clam chowder. Local wines can be purchased for $20 a bottle and take-home butter warmers are available for $15.
As part of the crab-packed weekend, Lakeport Rotary is holding an online auction beginning on Friday, Feb. 18, at 9 a.m.
There will also be a number of home-baked desserts auctioned as well. The dessert auction closes at 2 p.m. sharp on Saturday, February 18, and the main auction will close on Sunday, February 20, at 9 p.m.
There are sponsorship opportunities. Those who opt for the $2,000 King Trident sponsorship will receive eight full crab meals, four Lake County wines, four chowders, four warmers and desserts, as well as press coverage and a business promotional video with Crabby the Crab.
The $1,000 Mermaid sponsorship includes four meals, two bottles of wine, two chowders, two warmers and desserts, a Crabby promotional and press coverage.
And, finally, there are $500 Starfish sponsorships which include two meals, one bottle of Lake County wine, one chowder, one warmer and dessert. The same Crabby promotional video and press coverage are included.
This year’s King Trident sponsors already include Adventist Health Clearlake, Sutter Lakeside Hospital and Lake County Tribal Health.
Mermaid sponsors who have already committed include Strong Financial Network and Lakeport Tire and Auto.
Starfish sponsors so far are Nala’s Cleaning Service, Dennis Fordham Law and Bell Haven Flower Farm.
To inquire about sponsorships, please contact event coordinator Faith Hornby at 707-349-3533 or email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — California hasn’t lost a species in 50 years, but that could soon change if efforts to save the Clear Lake hitch fail.
The population of the hitch, a large minnow native to Clear Lake and its tributaries, is crashing, local tribes are asking state and federal agencies for immediate intervention and on Thursday the state held a virtual meeting with Lake County residents and officials to discuss the emergency.
The hitch’s troubles began decades ago. Once reported to number in the millions, over the last decade, the hitch population has plummeted.
In 2014, as the situation was accelerating, the hitch was listed as a threatened species under the California Endangered Species Act. However, the federal government hasn’t followed suit so far.
The hitch has traditionally been a primary food source for Lake County’s Pomo tribes. In December, those tribes and the Center for Biological Diversity asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to provide emergency protections to the fish. They also held a summit with state and federal agencies to discuss immediate help for the hitch.
Concerns about the hitch led to the proposal for a proclamation of a local emergency by the Board of Supervisors at the Jan. 10 meeting, but that discussion was rescheduled to Jan. 24.
On Thursday, the State Water Resources Control Board held the first of two public listening sessions about the hitch.
Thursday’s State Water board session started out with some technical issues with its Zoom link. Officials said they have updated the links to avoid that problem at the Feb. 1 session.
Valerie Zimmer of the State Water Board said there is widespread agreement that the hitch has been in decline for a long time.
She showed a graph of hitch population and juvenile spawning data collected by the United States Geological Survey.
The data showed that there has been a near complete failure of juvenile hitch success after 2017, with Zimmer noting that the decline is validated by local knowledge and narratives.
The slide showed that a small number of juveniles were recorded in 2018, a smaller number in 2019. There were no numbers given for 2020, and then in 2021 no juveniles were recorded. In 2022, only a very small number were found.
“This looks like the population is crashing right now,” she said.
With the hitch having up to a six-year life cycle, if they don’t come back this year, Zimmer said they may be gone for good.
“Unfortunately we are late to this issue,” Zimmer said, adding that the state is catching up and working with local agencies and organizations.
As for why the hitch population is crashing now, Zimmer said there is no single cause and no single person who is responsible, although the drought is having an impact.
Zimmer said the hitch’s peril is due to human activity. Examples of harmful activities include:
• Flow barriers: Culverts, stream bed alterations and dams. • Insufficient water flow volumes: Drought impacts, surface diversions and losing streams. • Habitat degradation: Mining, land use changes, levee development and flood control. • Predation and competition with invasive species • Pollution: Mercury and harmful algal blooms.
Flow barriers may be a critical issue as hitch don’t jump over barriers. Zimmer said they can migrate when there is a lot of water, but not when water is low.
A key issue is lack of flow in Lake County’s creeks. “If there’s no water in the creeks, none of this other stuff matters,” Zimmer said.
Zimmer also showed a picture of a 2014 fish kill in Adobe Creek, when juvenile hitch got stuck and died. Just a week before, the creek was running very high, so a biologist couldn't get into the creek to get the fish out.
More recently, Lake County’s tribes have carried out successful fish rescues, such as one that occurred in April when Robinson Rancheria and Habematolel Pomo tribal members worked with the Lake County Water Resources staff and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to rescue hundreds of hitch from an isolated pool in Adobe Creek near Soda Bay in Lakeport.
Other possible factors impacting the hitch’s numbers include illegal water diversions, cannabis, turning in pumps too early, overallocated water and groundwater use, especially when wells are close to creeks. Zimmer acknowledged data gaps and a lot that isn’t known.
Zimmer said the focus is being placed on the creeks that historically have had a lot of hitch in them — Adobe, Cole, Kelsey, Manning and Middle creeks.
She showed maps of surface water diversions — irrigation, frost protection, domestic water and stock watering — as well as a map of uses like frost protection, which tends to occur in the spring when the hitch are migrating.
Primary uses for water in Lake County include urban, 13,000 acres; vineyards, 10,000 acres; fruits and nuts, 7,000 acres; pasture, 3,000 acres; and grain and hay, 1,200 acres.
Zimmer said the state is not looking at the entire county as it tries to address the situation. “We’re focusing on the areas that are important to the hitch.”
“I do think agriculture can be a really strong partner,” said Zimmer, explaining that some farmers are offering to put water into the creeks to get them moving so the fish can survive.
She said farmers also can help by looking for barriers — including roads and structures — on their properties that may impact the creeks.
John Murphy, a senior engineering geologist in the State Water Resources Control Board enforcement division, discussed the effort to get regulations in place, which can’t be done within just a few months, and takes time and data.
“At the end of the day, we know that the hitch is in trouble,” and the state wants to do everything they can to protect the fish, he said.
Murphy went over voluntary actions to keep water in the creeks this year, such as reductions in diversions and pumping, coordinating diversion and pumping timing, alternating frost protection methods and pump banks — using groundwater for streamflow. He said they are open to suggestions.
He said they have research going back to the 1950s when the hitch started having trouble.
There are concerns that, even with all of this year’s rains, the storm that took place on Wednesday could be the last rain for months, following a pattern from last year.
Murphy said they have information and momentum to help the fish. “We can’t lose this momentum. We don’t want the hitch going extinct on our watch.”
He said they are early in effort with lots of questions and possible solutions. Murphy added that they can’t let uncertainty about what actions to take lead to the hitch’s extinction.
As for what’s needed from the community, State Water Board staff said they need commitments for specific voluntary actions, such as reducing diversions and pumping from February to May, using alternative frost protection methods, coordinating diversion and pump timing.
They’re also looking for local coordinators, people to share data, leads on connecting with hard-to-reach people and invites to community meetings.
The state wants to hear what people would do to solve the problem in the short and long term, and get input on what specific steps the public thinks it should take.
There will be additional engagement opportunities with the state coming up.
The hitch will be discussed at the Board of Supervisors’ next meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 24, and the State Water Board will hold another listening session from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 1, via Zoom, http://bit.ly/CLH_Feb.1.