Cows and elk supporters battle it out
POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE » About 200 signcarrying protesters came to one of Marin’s most historic dairy farms Sunday to demonstrate against what they say is mismanagement of a beloved national park located an hour from San Francisco.
The latest battle at the 71,000-acre Point Reyes National Seashore could be characterized as “cows versus tule elk,” but as with many decisions at Point Reyes, the issues are as complex as they are contentious.
Competing interests intersected Sunday to underscore the prickly position park rangers face in trying to manage a land of wild coastal beaches and headlands, plunging cliffs and estuaries — as well as 24 generational ranches that were here before California became a state.
“The National Park System has failed this ecosystem,” said Diana Oppenheim of ForElk, one of the animalrights groups that organized the demonstration. “They’ve created a bio-diversity graveyard.”
At issue is the park service’s recommendation to amend its General Management Plan to extend private leases for ranchers from five years to 20 years. The preferred amendment also allows the culling of one of the three herds of tule elk that live on park land.
The plan also would let ranchers in the park and the neighboring Golden Gate National Recreation Area add animals such as goats and chickens to their operations.
Many in West Marin who embrace the outdoors say they have an emotional connection to the seashore and want it returned to a natural state.
Dennis Fleming, who said his family has lived in Marin for 150 years, joined the demonstrators because he said it is unfair to cull the elk: “They were here long before the cows,” said Fleming, 76.
But some say the historic character of the park also should be preserved because it is part of what makes Point Reyes so special. Unlike many U.S. national parks that keep development to a minimum, Point Reyes opened in 1962 with the thriving dairy farms.
“Ranching in the park and wilderness has been working,” said Melanie Gunn, the seashore’s outreach coordinator. “Are there conflicts? There are. But it’s a cool story.”
Protesters on Sunday congregated at Clover Sonoma McClure Dairy, owned by legacy rancher Robert McClure. He said his grandfather bought the land where he was standing in 1930.
Protesters had planned to climb the ranch’s fences to stage a demonstration in front of cows in small pens. McClure asked them not to contaminate the area, so they stayed on the ranch’s half-mile long gravel driveway as some ranch hands watched. Activists gave speeches saying they want farming out of the park so native scrubs and coastal prairie can return to its habitat and thrive.
McClure said he cannot change people’s minds, but added that he appreciated how peaceful everyone on his property acted.
“Everything has an impact,” McClure said. “Agriculture has an impact. People with cars who drove here have an impact.”
He said some fail to understand the potential of making the competing interests work, something the park service has tried to balance for 58 years.
Activists want the ranchers out as soon as possible as their message is tied to broader issues involving the sustainability of meat and dairy farming in the wake of climate change.
But little has caused a bigger stir than the survival of the tule elk, which is found only in California, including Coyote Ridge in Morgan Hill and parts of Alameda County. Officials estimate the state’s elk population has grown to 5,700 animals after nearly getting wiped out by overhunting and habitat loss by the 1870s.
Activists say the elk are trapped behind fences with dwindling water supply because of the recent drought. The fences keep wildlife from mingling with ranching, which occupies 26,100 acres of parkland. Gunn said park scientists do not believe the elk’s water source has disappeared but the elk’s numbers have fluctuated for decades.
“Point Reyes has this complicated history,” she said. “It is amazing to be in a national park to see bobcats, coyotes, badgers, tule elk and active farmers who have been on these ranches since California was born.”