San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Point Reyes tule elk plan backs ranchers
Park Service proposes managing herd by removals or killings
The roundup and possible killing of the tule elk that charm tourists in the Point Reyes National Seashore inched closer to reality this week as the National Park Service began an environmental review of a proposal to extend and even increase agriculture in the park.
The protections for agriculture along the rugged coast of Marin County would come at the expense of the elk, which were reintroduced to the seashore in 1978 after they nearly went extinct.
The Park Service, which administers 28,000 acres of agricultural land in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes seashore, has proposed new 20year leases for beef and dairy ranches at the seashore and “management” of the wild elk herd, which has been competing with cattle for forage.
The controversial plan, hailed by ranchers and lambasted by environmental groups, would honor a commitment to agriculture made after the owners of the historic ranches in Point Reyes supported creation of the park more than a half century ago.
But the Park Service’s preference, out of five alternatives in the environmental review, would call for elk — once the population reaches a certain point — to be removed from land they now share with ranchers and dairy farmers as agricultural uses are extended to
additional purposes, like raising chickens.
The original elk herd, in a fenced area at Pierce Point, is already at or near capacity, so any plan to thin the herd would require the massive animals to be taken somewhere else or killed. Ranchers have also proposed sterilization or adding more fences.
“What we are proposing is a compromise between no ranching and no elk,” said Melanie Gunn, the outreach coordinator for the 71,028acre seashore. “We think that ranching and elk at Point Reyes National Seashore can work well together.”
Environmental groups don’t see it that way.
“I don’t think evicting native elk that we spent decades and decades trying to bring back is the way the Park Service intended to manage public lands,” said Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been fighting, along with the Marin-based Resource Renewal Institute, to give the elk free range.
Allowing ranchers to raise chickens and other farm animals would also draw bobcats, coyotes and other predators, he said.
“That‘s a guaranteed recipe for conflict with wildlife,” Miller said, “and the ranchers are going to be lobbying to take care of that wildlife, too, so where does it end?”
Miller opposes the extension of the five-year leases, which were agreed upon as part of a settlement of a lawsuit with three environmental groups last year.
The park’s proposal is essentially the same one outlined in a bill cosponsored by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, that now awaits Senate confirmation. Given that Huffman’s co-sponsor is Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and the Trump administration’s well-documented antipathy for wildlife protection and support of profit-making enterprises on public land, it is no wonder environmentalists fear the free-roaming elk are on the way out.
It is a wrenching dilemma because the tule elk, which sport massive candelabra-like antlers and can weigh up to 800 pounds, are a symbol of conservation success at the seashore. Many of the 3 million annual visitors to the park come specifically to see the magnificent creatures.
It is also a conflict between two almost sacred Bay Area environmental concepts — sustainable organic farming and native wildlife conservation.
Tule elk once were abundant across Northern California, with about 500,000 stretching from the lush floodplains of the Central Valley to the grassy coastal hills.
But the elk herds were hunted relentlessly after the Gold Rush, and their habitat was converted to crops and cattle grazing land. They were thought to be extinct in 1874, when wealthy landowner Henry Miller discovered a dozen or so in Kern County. The herd grew, prompting reintroduction in several areas of California. Hunting the animals was banned in 1971.
In 1978, 10 tule elk were moved to the 2,600acre Tomales Point Elk Reserve at Pierce Point. They did so well that the Park Service moved 28 animals to the Limantour Beach area in 1999. Within two years, the freeranging herd had split up, with some apparently swimming across Drakes Estero, where they began grazing among the cows near the historic ranches.
It is a dilemma for the Park Service, which made a commitment to preserve agriculture in exchange for the sale of ranch land in 1962, when the national seashore was created. Then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reiterated that pledge in 2012.
The Park Service leases the fields to mostly organic dairy ranchers, who have complained about fences being ruined and cows being intimidated by the powerful beasts. But the biggest problem, they say, is that the elk gobble up the rye grasses that cows rely upon. It’s especially bad for the small dairies because at least 30 percent of a cow’s diet must be forage material or they lose their organic certification.
The Park Service this week initiated a 30-day public comment period that will end Nov. 30. The plan is to have a draft environmental impact statement by next summer and a final plan by early 2020.
Gunn said all options are being considered, including no action, but park biologists are clearly leaning toward management of the elk herd, which is permitted because they were never listed under the Endangered Species Act. In that case, Gunn said, the choices have been narrowed to rounding up the surplus elk and relocating them outside the park, possibly on American Indian land, driving them out or hiring hunters to kill them.