This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.

The National Park Service has opened a final public comment period for its proposal to dismantle the Tule Elk Reserve's deadly 3-mile-long fence at Point Reyes National Seashore in California. You can help free the Tule elk by participating right now.

Tule elk are members of a very rare, endemic species who were almost hunted to extinction. Right now, there are about 315 elk inside the fenced Reserve, the largest of three Tule elk herds at Point Reyes.

Confinement has killed over 475 of these gentle elk over the last decade. Many elk have died horrible, drawn-out deaths from starvation and thirst because they couldn't access food and water.

After decades of animal suffering and years of campaigning by In Defense of Animals and other elktivists, the National Park Service (NPS) has finally proposed removing the fence.

With your help, Tule elk could be liberated from their enclosure to roam freely across more of the park's 71,000 acres. It will increase their access to food, water, and more natural breeding, giving elk a wilder, healthier life.

In Defense of Animals is calling for all elk and wild animal fans to participate in this pivotal, historic process to end a 45-year-old policy of lethally confining the Tule elk at Point Reyes.

Public comments are crucial in driving the ecological restoration of this National Seashore, which is still being heavily damaged by pollution from private cattle businesses.

Letter to Decision Maker(s) for reference:

I support the National Park Service’s preferred Alternative B  in the Tomales Point Area Plan Environmental Assessment, which would remove the 8-foot-tall wire and post fence of the Tomales Point Tule Elk Reserve at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Release this largest of the park’s three herds of Tule elk from fenced confinement. Fences to confine any animals do not belong in Point Reyes or any national park unit.

In addition, please officially rescind the current regulation in the General Management Plan allowing killing of elk in the other two herds, because herds may intermingle when the fence is removed. I oppose all lethal “management” of any wild animals at Point Reyes and in any national park.

Finally, the Seashore’s Tule elk cannot be free, healthy, and safe until all the private cattle operations are removed because they expose elk to numerous hazards; massive amounts of fecal bacteria from cattle contaminate the soil, streams, and ponds. Manure-borne cattle diseases, including Johne’s disease, infect many of the cattle on the privately owned ranches in the park. The NPS itself cites a 1979 study that found half of the park’s dairy ranches were infected with Johne’s disease. 

Hundreds of miles of wire and barbed wire fences do not belong in this national park or any other. They restrict the public’s access and negatively impact the free movements of wild animals which the park is legislated to value above all other considerations — especially commercial, for-profit businesses that only lease land in the park.

I thank the National Park Service for requesting and considering public comments on this very important issue.

Sincerely,

Signed

This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.