Fed Plan to Extend Point Reyes Ranch Leases, Kill Tule Elk, Moves Forward In Point Reyes National Seashore, the National Park Service caters to cattle industry profits over the preservation of public land. George Wuerthner
May 10, 2021
Fences. Everywhere I went during a recent trip to Point Reyes National Seashore, I encountered fences. There are 300 miles of these barriers throughout the 71,000-acre national seashore. Why are there fences in a national park unit? The National Park Service (NPS) would say they are part of a “cultural heritage” that needs to be protected. But these fences are symbolic of a controversy at Point Reyes. They exist to facilitate the private use of public lands, for the personal profit of the cattle industry, with the full blessing of the park service charged to preserve the area’s natural values.
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.
Jump to navigation
By 05/05/2021
The Eta Aquarids meteor showers peak on the very evening of this edition. Fog permitting, we should have good viewing after midnight. These meteors are thought to be bits of cosmic debris left from Halley’s Comet. The showers last through May, but the peak date is the most active night.
How quickly central California transitions from spring green to summer golden brown. But the hints of brown along roadways and hillsides are balanced against a wonderful year for colorful wildflowers, something to hold in memory as we move toward the dry season. It seems like everywhere you look flowers are blooming. Lupines and poppies carpet the meadows behind the Bear Valley Visitor Center and along Limantour Road. The grasslands of Tomales Point pop with bright orange paintbrush and beds of purple Douglas iris.
Jump to navigation
By 05/05/2021
A new study that used satellite imagery to monitor the movements of cows and tule elk in the Point Reyes National Seashore could help the park manage grazing conflicts and monitor the spread of Johne’s disease.
Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, collected satellite images along with GPS collar data and in-person observations from 2010 to 2017 to track the animals. They found that cattle were the primary drivers of the elks choice of habitat, and that the elk avoided cattle and tended to stick to their own grazing areas on and off ranchland.
Still, the study’s lead author, Lacey Hughey, a former U.C. Santa Barbara researcher who now works for the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, said that won’t necessarily always be true. “That can always change as you get major climate change, or more cattle, or a lot more elk,” she said.
California Coastal Commission On Point Reyes Ranching thewildlifenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thewildlifenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.