This alert is no longer active, but here for reference.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

In the face of overwhelming public opposition and media attention, the National Park Service has just blinked on its deadly, destructive plans for the wild Tule elk of Point Reyes National Seashore in California. This is a stay of execution for elk and an opportunity for us to continue to speak out not only on their behalf, but on behalf of all wild animals who call this national park home. We must act now to save them all!

For over a year, the National Park Service (NPS), a division of the U.S. Department of the Interior, was expected to sign a Record of Decision on July 14, 2021. This was to be its final act before implementing its General Management Plan for Point Reyes initiated as part of a settlement following a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, and the Resource Renewal Institute in 2016.

The General Management Plan for Point Reyes not only authorizes the lethal “management” of Tule elk in its two free-ranging herds by gunning them down, but also expands private, for-profit beef and dairy ranches operating inside the park.

The dairy ranching and cattle operations are why the park's largest of three herds remains confined inside a “Tule Elk Reserve” at Tomales Point, where hundreds of Tule elk are confined to drought-stricken land lacking adequate food and water to sustain these rare animals. An 8-foot-tall fence prevents them from naturally wandering to find life-sustaining food and water.

Point Reyes has made headlines recently because of the brutal deaths by starvation and dehydration of 152 of the Tule elk in the Reserve in 2020 alone.

Instead, because of tremendous public and political pressure putting the deadly, misguided General Management Plan in the spotlight, the NPS has just requested a 60-day delay for further study, claiming it is “committed to ensuring that its decision is responsive to formal public comments” — even though the NPS has repeatedly ignored overwhelming public opposition to private cattle operations in this public park.

This delay is an immediate reprieve for the elk and an unexpected, golden opportunity for additional and increased public and political pressure to reverse the NPS's policy direction and instead demand it favor Tule elk, all the park's wild animals, and move the dairy and beef cows out of the park because these business owners were paid millions of dollars to vacate decades ago.

Now is when your voice and your actions are needed more than ever. Together, we can permanently derail the park's atrocious, deadly Tule elk “management” plan and protect the Tule elk forever as was originally intended, way back in 1962, when this national park was created.

Now is when thousands of regular people can alter the course of national park history by demanding that the Department of Interior protect Point Reyes' wild Tule elk and all its wild animals, and remove private, exploited cows who are both victims and also polluting the Point Reyes seashore, the largest stretch of protected coastline in all of California. Now is when the original vision for Point Reyes National Seashore can finally be realized: a haven for wildlife, not private businesses brutalizing both wild and domesticated animals while fouling the environment and accelerating the climate crisis.

The Seashore's unregulated and under-regulated beef and dairy operations are by far its most significant source of water pollution, soil degradation, wildlife habitat destruction, and climate crisis-accelerating greenhouse gases in the form of millions of tons of invisible methane gas generated by the park's 5,600 taxpayer-subsidized beef cattle and dairy cows.

Activists have staged numerous demonstrations in the Reserve, calling attention to the deaths because the elk body count will increase in the 2,600-acre Reserve until the fence is removed, allowing the elk trapped inside to roam freely for food and water on all of the Seashore's 71,000 acres.

In Defense of Animals, ForElk and The TreeSpirit Project, among other groups, have vowed to continue actions to raise media attention and public awareness to remove the fence and the private cattle operations that have no business being inside a national park and end the cruel deaths by gunshot, starvation, and dehydration.

Letter to Decision Maker(s) for reference:

Subject: Stop the Killing of Tule Elk at Point Reyes National Seashore

As someone who is concerned with wild animals and the use of national parks, and one of over 250,000 In Defense of Animals supporters, I’m writing to urge you to oppose the National Park Service’s (NPS) supported General Management Plan Amendment (GMPA) for Point Reyes National Seashore.
 
Alternative B would extend leases for privately-owned dairy and beef ranches at Point Reyes and the neighboring Golden Gate National Recreation Area from five-year to 20-year leases, even though ranchers were already paid off millions in taxpayer money to move and they should have been vacated decades ago.
 
Not only would this also allow them to diversify their operations and create other for-profit businesses, but it would also put rare Tule elk at further risk. In recent years, hundreds of Tule elk have died horrifying and unnecessary deaths as a result of a lack of access to adequate forage and water.
 
In 2020 alone, 152 elk died in the Tule Elk Reserve at Tomales Point amid California’s record ongoing drought. They continue to remain trapped by fencing to appease publicly subsidized ranches that pollute and degrade this land. Under the GMPA, even more would be arbitrarily killed by the NPS for the same reason.  
 
This is not what the public wants to see happen in a national park. Many thousands of people have voiced their opposition to this proposal, as have scientists, dozens of animal advocacy and conservation groups, and the Coast Miwok, who were the original inhabitants and stewards of this land.
 
As the Biden administration moves to conserve 30% of our lands and waters by 2030, I sincerely hope you will support the implementation of Alternative F, which would see ranching removed from Point Reyes and create a future where this unique and fragile ecosystem is protected in perpetuity and indigenous Tule elk are truly free to roam.
 
Thank you for your timely consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

Signed

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