By Staci-lee Sherwood
Battle lines have been drawn between ranchers, who want to continue having their private livestock graze on public land for pennies, and those who feel National Parks belong to all people and should be kept as a haven for wildlife. This has been crystallized at Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) which is part of the National Park system. Most American will be surprised to learn that eleven national parks have private ranchers grazing on their public lands.
This is more than whether or not the Tule elk should remain fenced in at Tomales Point. The core issue is how our national parks should be used in the future… and if they should be used at all by the private sector.
When the park was created in 1962 many ranchers were led to think they would be allowed to graze their cattle inside the park forever and so far they have. “Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt has written that federal public lands livestock grazing ‘is the most damaging use of public land,’ and reams of scientific studies support that assertion.”
Most Americans would be surprised to learn how much ‘public land’ has been leased to these private industries. At some point the public will cease to have access to the public land they pay for once it’s all been leased to the private sector. Once PRNS came to be part of the national park system all grazing should have ended. The first group of Tule elk were relocated there in 1978 in the hopes of expanding the state population. The decision to put elk in an area that already allowed grazing cows was ill thought out and ripe for conflict, this led to the original herd being placed behind a fence at Tomales Point.
The Tomales Point herd is the focus of controversy with a population that has decreased by nearly 40% in the last two years down from 445 to 293. It’s the only herd that was placed in the fenced in area in 1978 where they are kept from roaming where the cows graze. The other two herds are free roaming. The Drakes Beach herd numbers at about 139 and the Limantour herd is down to about 155. Jack Gescheidt founder of TreeSpirit Project says “This many beef and dairy cows are Point Reyes’ largest source of land, water, air and atmospheric pollution. The private, for-profit cattle operations generate more greenhouse trapping gases, much of it methane, than all of this public park’s over two million annual visitor vehicle’s tailpipe emissions.”
The updated National Park Service management plan for the park shows it would allow park staff to shoot elk from the Drakes Beach herd to keep the population at a maximum of 140 elk Gescheidt “A survey of over 7,600 park visitors, commissioned by the National Park Service, revealed that 91% want Tule elk in the park, but not cows — results ignored in developing the park’s new 2021 General Management Plan which favors ranchers, keeps half the seashore’s elk trapped inside a small, fenced Reserve, and now allows shooting to death some elk living outside the Reserve.”
As stated in an article from 2012 at National Parks Conservation Association website, “as one national park superintendent told us, ‘There are commercial beef cattle in the park right now eating endangered plants that, if you dug one up, I’d arrest you for it.'”
There has been an increase in lawsuits filed on behalf of citizens to force the government to enforce the law. According to Kate Barnekow, one of the attorneys from Harvard Animal Law clinic who’s also suing the park service, points out that one of the issues that made her decide to take the case was that she “thought this was an interesting case because of the intersection between the impacts of wildlife, because of the park service’s clear deference to the agricultural interests at play.” She went on to add that this is a “stark case in that the park service so clearly neglected its duty to act for so long.” A final decision will most likely not come for several weeks.
In August 2021, hundreds of volunteers hiked several miles carrying water for the elk who were dying from lack of water, and food, due to drought conditions. It should be noted if the elk were not fenced in, they would be free to migrate where food and fresh water could be found. The fence forbids this natural survival behavior.
Across the country native wildlife are being removed from their ancestral home. It wasn’t that long ago when a National Park offered the best protection for wildlife living within their boundaries. Over the years, that safety net has been removed and priority has shifted from protecting native wildlife to openly killing them in several national parks.
Another solution would be to relocate some of the elk to any number of parks where herds have settled in a sustainable habitat. A question for the park service is: wouldn’t this be more humane than just shooting ‘excess’ elk?
As the Tule elk wait for the courts to battle it out they still struggle to survive.
Staci-lee Sherwood is a freelance writer & blogger based in Deerfield Beach, Florida.