By

Jeanine Pfeiffer
About the author

Dr. Jeanine Pfeiffer in an ethnoecologist focusing on biocultural diversity: the intrinsic connections between nature and culture. Her award-winning essays, research articles, poems, and films have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, anthologized, broadcast over radio, exhibited in art galleries, and published in major media outlets, literary magazines, and scientific journals. She has worked as a consultant to the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians on separate water monitoring and cultural preservation projects, but is not directly involved in hitch restoration efforts.

Articles by Jeanine Pfeiffer

21
Mar

Saving a Species Struck by Systemic Oversights at Clear Lake

Since the 1950s, four native fish extinctions have taken place in Lake County’s Clear Lake: the thicktail chub, Clear Lake splittail, Pacific lamprey, and hardhead. A fifth endemic species, the Clear Lake hitch, is teetering on the brink. “Agencies view the hitch as just a fish. But for Tribes the hitch is sacred,” explains Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians tribal elder Ron Montez, Sr. “We believe Creator placed this fish here to help us survive for thousands of years. The chi (Pomo word for hitch) not only fed the seven Tribes around the lake, but it fed Tribes who came in from surrounding counties—Sonoma, Napa, Sacramento—and sustained all these people since time immemorial. That’s gone now. Anyone younger than...
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