Tag: point reyes national seashore

Elk, Point Reyes National Seashore, Tule Elk

Point Reyes National Seashore; Should Private Ranching Be Allowed on National Park Lands?

A Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) Bull Tule elk with Barbed Wire Caught in His Antlers

Skeleton of a PRNS Bull Elk Who Died Because Barbed Wire Caught in Antlers Prevented Him from Opening His Mouth.

I was on a Marin TV show entitled “The People’s Environmental News.”  It’s hosted by Barbara McVeigh and and Charlie Siler.  The show was about Point Reyes National Seashore and the planning and NEPA process currently underway for whether 28,000 acres of national park land should be managed for national park purposes or for private ranching purposes.  Environmentalists want the land to be managed in accordance with the laws requiring the park to protect, preserve and restore the natural resources, including wildlife such as the tule elk.   The ranchers want the park to be managed to maximize profit regardless of its effect on wildlife.  That requires removing the elk because they eat grass and the ranchers want their cows to get every blade of grass.  Thus, the ranchers want the elk removed/shot.  They can’t be moved outside the park because they have Johne’s disease which they got from the cattle.  For the past 40 years or so the National Park Service has gone along with whatever the ranchers wanted.  No, I’m not kidding.  The show can be seen here.

I was also on a show last April with Laura Cunningham of the Western Watersheds Project and Skyler Thomas of White Shark Videos.  That show was also about ranching and protecting the elk at Point Reyes Seashore.  That show can be seen here.

 

Point Reyes National Seashore, Tule Elk

Cows in Creek; Point Reyes National Seashore

I was at Point Reyes National Seashore last Thursday. K Ranch beef cows were in Kehoe Creek again. There is a fence just a bit beyond the top border of the video that fails occasionally. This scene is the result. The fence should be relocated to the top of the large slope above the creek to keep manure out of the creek in wet periods, but that would remove many acres from the ranch’s grazing area. I emailed the Park Service about the cows and they replied that the rancher had been notified.

There is a planning process underway to determine if ranching should continue on these national park lands or whether the lands should be managed to protect and restore them to a natural condition as required in national parks. Perhaps the most controversial issue is whether the 125 elk that roam through the park’s ranching area should be shot because they eat grass and the ranchers feel that as permittees on park lands their cows are entitled to all the grass. The Park Service has never allocated any forage to elk or other wildlife in the permits.

If you look and listen carefully, you’ll see the top cow defecate and fart at the end of the video. Kehoe Creek, which begins and ends within the Seashore, is rated as one of the most polluted streams in California.

Tule Elk

Bull Tule Elk; Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a bull tule elk feeding at sunset.

A bull tule elk feeds at sunset.

This photo was taken during the last few minutes of daylight in 2019.  It was a sunny day with no fog.  This bull is one of the over 400 elk that are kept locked up inside a 2,600 acre enclosure.  There are no perennial streams in the enclosure.  The elk are dependent on old farm ponds that were dug decades ago before the Park Service bought the ranches.  Unfortunately, these ponds dry up in drought years.  About 250 elk died during the drought several years ago.  Perennial streams exist not far outside the enclosure.

You may be wondering why they are kept penned up.  It’s so the elk won’t bother the ranchers who live with their 6,000 cattle and sheep on about 25,000 acres of park land and do so at about half the rental rates for ranch lands outside the park.

When the Seashore was asked why the Park Service didn’t do anything to save the elk during the drought, the Park Service said that it was Park Service policy to let nature take its course.  But in nature there are no eight-foot tall woven-wire elk-proof fences.

Cows

POINT REYES PLANNING PROCESS ON TV

Photo of two milk cows standing in a pond.

Cows in Pond, Point Reyes

I appeared on Marin TV a week ago with Laura Cunningham of Western Watersheds Project and Skyler Thomas of White Shark Videos. We were on a program called the People’s Environmental News with hosts Charlie Siler and Barbara McVeigh. The hour-long program was about Point Reyes National Seashore and the current planning process. If you’d like to watch it, it’s on YouTube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qPEZtl1CDM&feature=youtu.be

Here is a picture of a pond in Point Reyes National Seashore which is one of the many things we talked about on the program. The pond is entirely covered in weed growth. Why? Because cows stand in it and urinate and defecate. It also receives manure from lands above it as well as another pond above it whose waters percolate into it. Cow manure is basically fertilizer which causes any vegetation in the water to grow out of control. Of course, there is also the e coli problem, but that’s a story for another day.

This pond is part of the upper reaches of the South Fork of Kehoe Creek which is one of the most polluted creeks in California. Yes, a creek whose entire watercourse is in a national park is one of the most polluted watersheds in California. Way to go National Park Service! It’s responsible animal husbandry to fence a stock pond and to place a stock tank downgrade from the pond and then to run a pipe between them. But that’s not the way the ranchers at Point Reyes operate and the Park Service Superintendent is afraid to tell the ranchers to do anything for fear they will call Senator Feinstein and/or Rep. Huffman and that Superintendent will be out the door, like the last one. But I digress. Back to that pond.

The pond’s water percolates through its earthen dam and joins other Souith Fork waters until the South Fork joins the two North Forks of Kehoe Creek at a pool near the Kehoe Beach parking lot. From there, the manure-laden water flows to Kehoe Beach where the water sits in a pool until a large enough storm occurs that can breach the beach and deliver the manure to the Pacific Ocean.

Cows

The Big Lie — Point Reyes National Seashore and Ranching

Severe Cattle Trails at Point Reyes National Seashore Becoming Gullies

Cattle trails on hillsides in the Seashore cause severe erosion and manure pollution of the adjacent bays and ocean.

CONGRESS NEVER INTENDED THAT RANCHING WOULD GO ON FOREVER

Contrary to the claims of some, there is no basis for asserting that when Congress passed the Point Reyes legislation in 1962 it intended that ranching would go on forever after the ranch lands were acquired by the National Park Service (NPS).  The legislation didn’t address the issue at all.  Furthermore, there is no point in debating the issue now because Congress addressed the issue in 1978 by adding language to the legislation stating that ranching was discretionary, not mandatory.  That language provides as follows:

“Where appropriate in the discretion of the Secretary, he or she may lease federally owned land . . . which has been acquired . . . and which was agricultural land prior to its acquisition.  Such lease shall be subject to such restrictive covenants as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of sections 459c to 459c–7 of this title.”

92 Stat. 3487 (Nov. 10, 1978); 16 U.S.C. § 459c-5.  (Emphasis added.)

Clearly, Congress addressed the issue in 1978 and made ranching permissible in the Secretary’s discretionary, but not required.

Furthermore, the Secretary’s discretion is limited by other language requiring that Point Reyes be managed without impairment of its natural values.

“[T]he property . . . shall be administered . . . without impairment of its natural values, in a manner which provides for such recreational, educational, historic preservation, interpretation, and scientific research opportunities as are consistent with, based upon, and supportive of the maximum protection, restoration, and preservation of the natural environment . . . .”

16 U.S.C. § 459c-6.  (Emphasis added.)

Ranching is impairing the natural resources of Point Reyes as is obvious to anyone who goes out there and looks at the ranching area.  Consequently, NPS is violating its statutory duty under the Seashore statute.  It is also violating the 1916 NPS Organic Act which has similar non-impairment language and applies to all national parks, including Point Reyes.  The only way to stop impairing nature at Point Reyes is to stop ranching and manage Point Reyes like national parks are supposed to be managed with the overarching duty being the protection of natural resources, not the destruction of them.  It’s time for the Park Service to perform its statutory duty by removing the ranchers, not the elk the ranchers want removed because the elk, like their 6,000 cattle, eat grass.  The Seashore is a national park, not a private ranch.

Coyote

Blue-Eyed Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a coyote that has blue eyes.

Blue-eyed Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

I saw that blue-eyes coyote again with the damaged left eye a week ago.  The last time I photographed him was about two months ago.  He seems to be doing well.  I’ve wondered if he is the only blue-eyed coyote at Point Reyes.

This is a photo of a blue-eyed coyote in Point Reyes National Seashore.

Blue-eyed Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

With his left eye the way it is, there’s no chance of thinking that he might be a second blue-eyed coyote there.