The Sierra Club has become extremely concerned about Point Reyes National Seashore’s management of the 2,600-acre Tomales Point Elk Reserve, where tule elk are held captive behind an eight-foot, woven-wire fence. 254 individual elk (47% of the population) died there during the 2012-2015 drought while the wild, free-roaming Drakes Beach and Limantour herds increased. We are now
The Sierra Club has become extremely concerned about Point Reyes National Seashore’s management of the 2,600-acre Tomales Point Elk Reserve, where tule elk are held captive behind an eight-foot, woven-wire fence. 254 individual elk (47% of the population) died there during the 2012-2015 drought while the wild, free-roaming Drakes Beach and Limantour herds increased. We are now
This story was originally published by Biographic and is republished here by permission.
Point Reyes sits at the western edge of Marin County, California, a pick-axe shaped peninsula that juts between the pounding waves of the Pacific. It’s a landscape of stark beauty; a patchwork of windswept headlands, broad leeward bays, wildflower-strewn meadows, and dripping evergreen forest. State and federal agencies list more than a hundred plant and animal species within the park as threatened or endangered, among them the California red-legged frog (
Rana draytonii), western snowy plover (
Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus), and coho salmon (
Oncorhynchus kisutch). This natural richness draws around 2 million visitors a year.
Point Reyes plan for cattle ranches, elk herds faces impassioned opposition ahead of key vote
FacebookTwitterEmail
1of2
A bull Tule Elk stands in a dry pond inside the Tomales Point Tule Elk Reserve inside Point Reyes National Seashore in August.Jessica Christian / The ChronicleShow MoreShow Less
2of2
Two tule bull elk graze next to cattle in a field along Drake’s Beach Road at the Point Reyes National Seashore in April 2020.Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The ChronicleShow MoreShow Less
As Point Reyes National Seashore finalizes a plan to continue cattle ranching in the park, opponents are waging a last-ditch effort to rein in the tradition.