Daniel (Dan) Christenson has definitely left his mark in the world, and in a variety of ways. Most notably, Dan was one of the key players in getting the Golden Trout Wilderness established while working for California Fish and Game.
Dan was born in Montrose, CA, in the house his dad built. He grew up in that house and stayed through High School and his two years of Glendale Community College, where he earned his AA in Pre-Forestry General Education. Dan left home in 1952 to attend Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA, where he earned his BS degree in Fisheries in 1956, followed by post-graduate studies in Biology at California State University, Fresno.
 Christenson |
For 15 years, Dan was the supervisor of the field Fisheries Biologists for the region, and also established the first Fishery Biologist position in Kernville in 1969, which he, himself, took over in 1984 until his retirement in 1996. During his career, Dan took a voluntary demotion to work as the region-wide Endangered Species coordinator for four years, because he felt so passionately about the issue. In 1965, he began investigating the status of the Little Kern Golden Trout population; a subspecies of rainbow trout, which was found to be endangered. 'I spent 30 years in restoration of the species. By the time I retired, we had restored the Little Kern Golden Trout to the entire Little Kern drainage; about 100 miles of stream and 11 alpine lakes,' Dan proudly announced.
Before coming to work in the Kern Valley, Dan had met Ardis Walker, a Kern Valley legend who had hoped to preserve the Kern Platueau area for many years because he and his wife Gail spent a lot of time up there hiking and camping. Early in that process, Dan began working with Ardis and Joe Fontaine of the Sierra Club to get the Golden Trout Wilderness established. Dan reviewed many proposals and documents, and eventually ended up traveling to Washington, D.C. to testify before a committee hearing on the proposed Golden Trout Wilderness in the mid-1970s. Shortly after, the northern Kern Plateau, most of the Little Kern Drainage, and most of the Western Divide were included in the established Golden Trout Wilderness area, which has remained a protected wilderness to this day, 'Until [the Forest Service] cut down the damn trees on the trail north of Ponderosa last summer,' exclaimed Dan.
A passionate life-long protector of the environment, Dan has served as a member of the Threatened Salmonid Committee, Recreational Trout Fishery Committee, Kokanee Salmon Committee and Blunt-nosed Leopard Lizard recovery Team, as well as authored the Little Kern Golden Trout Fisheries Management Plan, for which he received the Sustained Superior Accomplishment Award in 1996 for restoration of the Little Kern golden trout in its native habitat. Daniel has been a member in the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, American Fisheries Society (who awarded him the Distinguished Professional Achievement Award in 1997), The Wildlife Society, The Nature Conservancy, Desert Tortoise Council, and was a founder of Golden Valley Ecological Society. He is presently Board Chairman of the Allen South Fork Wildlife Sanctuary, President of the Kern Valley Wildlife Association and listed in Marquis 'Who’Äòs Who In The West' as a conservationist of note. In addition, Dan was a charter member of the Board of Directors of Sequoia ForestKeeper (SFK), where he served as Chairman from the organization’s inception in 2001 until last year, when he passed the torch to the former Vice-Chairperson. 'I was asked to become a board member of SFK when it began by [SFK founder] Charlene Little, and jumped at the opportunity to do work that would be protective of the forest and its ecosystems,' he said.
Dan has five children with his first wife, whom he met at Humboldt State. His oldest son, Paul, died in a motorcycle accident in 1970, and his second child, Kenneth, contracted encephalitis in 1957 and has spent his life in an assisted living facility. His other three children, Glen, 49, Carl, 45, and Julie, 41, all live in Fresno/Clovis area, and he visits them often. He has five grandchildren, ranging in ages from 5-17, six step-grandchildren ranging in ages from 9-25, and 2.5 step-great-grandchidren.
Now that Dan has retired he enjoys spending time in the home he built with his wife Jenny Babcock in Alta Sierra, and still spends a lot of time in the forest, hiking, camping, and fishing. Dan says his favorite thing to do is singing with the choir Kernville United Methodist Church and with the Sierra Performing Arts Madrigal Singers. He has been singing in choirs since the 1960s including the Bakersfield College Community Chorus has also taken part in some amateur musical theater with the Kern Valley Players and Candlelight Theater in Bakersfield. He and Jenny also enjoy traveling all over the U.S, Central America, and Europe.
In addition, Dan and Jenny began raising Llamas in 1985 to supplement the commercial pack stock that CFG used in their work to travel in the wilderness areas. They ended up breeding, raising, and selling llamas, and doing llama shows where they had some championship performance llamas. In 2006, Dan did a solo llama rescue because the owners had unintentionally pushed the llama too hard on a pack trip, and had been forced to abandon it in the wilderness. The National Park Service had heard of Dan 'through the grapevine' and called to ask his assistance in the matter. The trip was just one more adventure in Dan’s full and satisfying life. 'I have always been content with my life, from day one. There have been things that haven’t gone right, but you make the most of it. I have been fortunate to live where I live and do what I have done,' said Dan.
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