Remove the cows, let the tule elk roamfreely

As founder of the Tree

Spirit Project, I want to write in as the environmental activist and photographer who made the Point Reyes National Seashore “elk fence photo” and also brought water to the elk two weeks earlier. Both are the subject of an editorial in theMarin IJ (“Elk advocates should be heard, but must follow the law,”

Sept. 16).

Yes, we drove into PRNS when it was closed for the Woodward fire, but crossed no physical barriers to do so, on a mission ofmercy to bring water to elk in need of it. We were five miles fromthe fire, upwind and in a fog bank. We didn’t interfere with firefighters and were in no danger ourselves.

From my perspective, the real scofflaws in this drama are the ranches and dairies whose 5,600 cows create massive

PRNS fecal pollution. They prevent hundreds of wild elk from freely seeking water and forage in a national park.

PRNS sticks to the script — adequate water, monitored conditions and a contingency plan, if needed. It is the same script used in the 2013-14 drought when 254 elk died. Officials should bring water in now.

The tiny seeps the PRNS keeps pointing to are inadequate.

Why wait for more deaths to prove there is a drought?

Kill hundreds of elk in your “zoo” once, shame on you. Kill hundreds of elk twice, shame on us. The eight-foot fence prevents elk from freedominside a national park. National parks are meant to host wildlife, not for-profit dairies and ranches, as its 1962 charter makes clear.

Political deals and industry campaign contributions will not change our cataclysmic climate reality. You can have thousands of polluting cows emitting massive amounts of greenhouse gases, or a protected national park to mitigate the climate crisis — but you can’t have both in the same place.

— Jack Gescheidt, Fairfax