Park service isn’t required to save failing ranches

The ranchers at Point

Reyes National Seashore got good news recently. Despite drought, fire, climate change, polluted creeks, dying wildlife, shrinking demand for their products, the need for outdoor recreation during a raging pandemic and thousands of public comments opposing ranching, the National Park Service will do everything it can to keep ranchers in the park in business.

These ranchers collected millions of dollars when they willingly sold their land to us some 50 years ago. Millions more in public dollars have since subsidized them. According to research, the NPS earned $500,000 from ranch leases last year — half of what it spent to maintain them. Seashore ranching accounted for $16 million, barely 2% of the county’s $620 million budget. More research shows that tourism to Point Reyes National Seashore alone added $100 million to the local economy.

Phasing out the ranches wouldn’t cause the agricultural economy to collapse. It would just cause ranchers — many of whom received millions more through Marin Agricultural Land Trust easements — to move out of our national park and on to their own land.

The ranches occupy 28,000 acres of public land where the public may not tread — neither may native wildlife. I believe that the fenced tule elk herd is dying as ponds dry up. The NPS plans to kill elk outside the fence to preserve grass for nearly 6,000 cattle — more than there are tule elk in the world.

No law requires the NPS to save failing businesses, but in the new plan it’s a priority. Besides adding chickens, sheep, goats, pigs, commercial crops, guest stays, retail shops and private events to park ranches, park service officials have abandoned the tenet of “intergenerational ranching” and will allow ranchland leases for non-family members. By law, the NPS must preserve the park “unimpaired” for future generations, not the bottom line of a privileged few.

— Susan Ives, Mill Valley