After years of campaigning to free the Tule elk at Point Reyes National Seashore, we applaud the California Coastal Commission’s speedy approval of the National Park Service’s proposal to dismantle the deadly, infamous, 8-foot-tall, 2-3-mile long fence confining them.

The wire and wooden post barrier fence was built to keep elk in, and away from for-profit beef and dairy ranchers who lease land from the public and, in return, pollute the National Seashore park and sentence hundreds of elk to starve and die of thirst by restricting the movement of these wild animals in a national park. Over 475 Tule elk died over a decade as a result of the fence, a larger number of these gentle, plant-eating ungulates than is currently still held captive inside the fenced compound, called a “Reserve,” despite its deadly effect on Tule elk.

After years of animal rights and citizen activist demonstrations and pressure, in June 2023 the National Park Service (NPS) finally relented and officially reversed its position on a 45-year-old park policy that kept this Tule elk herd confined to the drought-stricken Tomales Point, the northernmost peninsula of the popular San Francisco Bay Area national park unit. The recent vote, technically speaking, is a California Coastal Commission (CCC) concurrence with a “negative determination” assessment of no significant environmental impact caused by removing the 45-year-old fence as part of the new “Tomales Point Area Plan” (TPAP).

This bureaucratic hurdle, much easier to clear than an 8-foot-tall fence, is part of a years-long process that has been underway since June 2023, in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The CCC’s approval on Sept. 12 will allow the NPS to continue its process to dismantle the fence, which in turn will allow the elk inside the Reserve to wander south of the fenceline, into other, wetter areas of the park’s full 71,000 acres. Their current home, the Reserve, by comparison, is only 2,600 acres.

Their fence-down freedom will, both quickly and over time, improve the health of the herd. Significantly, it will reduce the number of painful, slow elk deaths from thirst and starvation during California’s hot, dry summer and autumn seasons. 

With the fence dismantled, the elk will also be able to mix and mate with elk from the park’s other two herds. The two other herds are less restricted in their movements — although they, and all of the park’s approximately 700 elk, are still affected and negatively impacted by the contiguous, privately-owned, beef and dairy cattle ranches. These businesses lease over one-third of Point Reyes from the public — and keep it fenced off to public access too, even though the public owns the land.  

Thousands of beef and dairy cattle (who are confined and used themselves) are concentrated and forced to pollute even more of the seashore’s land, water, and air every year (and every day) with millions of pounds of manure and methane. 

Activists are, however, delighted that the fence removal process is finally underway. We could not have done it without your steadfast support. Thank you!