The National Park Service has again betrayed its charter mission to protect the rare, wild Tule elk — and all the wild animals — in its care at Point Reyes National Seashore, just 20 miles from San Francisco. 

The National Park Service’s new General Management Plan, announced in September, grants cattle operations — which pollute the park and displace and harm wild Tule elk — new 20-year-long leases.

Even more outrageous, the plan authorizes actually shooting some Tule elk to death. If their numbers increase beyond an arbitrary limit advocated by ranch operators, they will be “culled” — bureaucratic jargon for “killed” — inside this national seashore park where wild animals are supposed to have the highest level of protection in America, not be confined and exterminated.

The 5,000 privately “owned” beef cattle and dairy cows at Point Reyes National Park are bred into existence by ranchers and forced into miserable existences that contribute to the climate crisis. These ranchers and their greed create more greenhouse gas emissions than all the tailpipe emissions from the park's 2,000,000 annual visitors’ vehicles.  Ranchers have jammed 5,000 exploited dairy cows and beef cattle onto the leased (not owned) cattle lands because they are allowed by shady corporation-influenced deals to lease the land at ½-market value rates. 

These taxpayer-subsidized cattle operations displace 1/3rd of the public seashore’s 71,000-acres. Millions of gallons of cow feces and urine denude Point Reyes, and pollute its waters every year, as this raw sewage drains into the Pacific Ocean.

Every year, millions of human Americans visit this unique nature preserve in Marin County, California, to enjoy and renew their spirits on wildlands which are supposed to be teeming with free-roaming wild animals.  However, political corruption has upended the park’s reason for being. 28,000 acres of this 71,000-acre National Seashore has been overrun by private cattle operations. Their hundreds of miles of cattle fences restrict the health, free movement, and reproduction of elk and deer alike, not to mention the cows and cattle of course, while also blocking public access to our own park!

In response to this outrage, In Defense of Animals is hosting the largest-ever rally for the Point Reyes Tule elk. Join us Saturday, December 4, 2021, at San Francisco’s Crissy Field, near the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, to protect the fewer than 590 remaining elk.  

This event is co-hosted with TreeSpirit Project, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Western Watersheds Project, and Resource Renewal Institute to educate the public and alert the media of the National Park Service’s wildlife- annihilating and climate-killing killing policies which are enacted only to profit private cattle ranchers.

Stand up for the Tule elk and other wild animals, as well as exploited farmed animals and duped citizens whose park has been stolen by corporate greed. Make sure to join our biggest-ever demonstration at Crissy Field in San Francisco on Saturday, December 4. If you can’t attend, tell friends who can.

We can reclaim this unique national park on California’s pristine coastline, and protect the few remaining rare Tule elk who should be free to roam and expand their herds.

WHAT: “Free the Elk + Cut the Cow Crap” rally
WHERE: Crissy Field, The Presidio, San Francisco, CA
WHEN: 12 - 2:15 pm, Saturday, December 4, 2021

RSVP on the Facebook event page.

For more information on this tragic situation visit: 

In Defense of Animals and TreeSpirit Project.

If you cannot attend, please consider donating to support our work in place of your presence. We are on the ground battling to defend the elk and fighting against a tragic fate for them. 

• Six times, In Defense of Animals-funded activists have brought life-giving water to the Tule elk this summer, bringing the elk extra weeks of life. 
• Six other times, we have held attention-grabbing demonstrations, on the ground, to highlight the elks’ plight. 
• Dozens of times, we have made headlines on the issues… and made the difference between life and death for some elk. 

We have also funded expensive groundwater testing that proves ranchers are massively polluting the Point Reyes’ land and waterways which we were able to use at a California Coastal Commission meeting. 

Once again, we ask you to please consider donating to support our work staging protests and water delivery actions, investigations, scientific reports, and public advocacy and media outreach.

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*COVID-19 Safety Precautions: 

Please stay home if you are feeling sick. 

Social distancing (and masks if at times this is not possible) is required by the National Park Service.

Questions? Contact jackg@idausa.org

In Defense of Animals fully expects and strongly urges all people involved in this campaign to act responsibly and lawfully and to respect the personal interests and privacy rights and concerns of any individuals who may be affected by, or become the subject of, your protests or related efforts.