Historical Ecology

Tulare Lake has fluctuated naturally for thousands of years. Yokuts oral traditions explain that the lake should go from low to high every ten years, with major floods and droughts occurring once per generation. Hydrological modeling of the lake basin over the last 2,000 years backs up these traditions, and shows disruptions caused by climate events like the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA). Because the lake was central to indigenous life and culture, a timeline of Pa'ashi's behavior is also a timeline of human life in the region.

In the late 1800's, Pa'ashi was 'put to sleep' by extensive colonial landscape modification. By comparing modeled lake levels to real measurements made between 1850 and 1950, we can see the effects that large-scale drainage, damming, irrigation, and industrial agriculture had on the lake and its ecosystem. These events were just one part of the California Central Valley's transformation into the most productive agricultural region on earth. This process was also a major component of the California Genocide: as indigenous people were systematically killed, the ecosystems that once supported their way of life were transformed by industry.