Tule Elk in Point Reyes By Valentin Kostelnik
On the windswept coastal bluffs of Point Reyes Nationto clientele in the Bay Area. Their dairy enterprise was al Seashore (PRNS), you can see an animal few would exthe largest in California for decades, but competition pect just an hour and a half north of San Francisco: Tule from other parts of the state came at the same time enelk! Yet, these beautiful creatures are at the heart of fierce vironmental degradation took its toll. It turns out that public and legal controversy because they share the park indigenous burning and tule elk grazing were crucial in with several private ranches. Ten maintaining the rolling green elk were relocated to Point Reyes grasslands that made the masin the 90s, and the population is sive Point Reyes dairy operation now at around 500 today. But so successful, and when shrubs because a third of the Seashore started reclaiming the land, the is leased by cattle ranchers who ex-Vermonters couldn’t comhave been here for a hundred pete financially with dairies in years, the elk’s habitat is restrictother parts of the state. Their ed to the original 2,600-acre monopoly fractured in the early fenced-in plot and two smaller 20th century as smaller ranches areas of coastal prairie. As Calbought the land. Descendants of ifornia’s droughts become more these ranchers still operate the severe, the restricted herds are beef and dairy ranches that are unable to move to other areas so controversial today and were in the park with better food and the center of another crisis in year-round water. In 2020 alone, the 1960s. 152 tule elk starved to death beSpurred on by a rapidly dehind the fence, prompting masveloping Bay Area, real estate sive public and legal backlash developers started eying the vast even before the park announced expanse of beautiful, undevelits plan to extend the rancher’s oped coastlines only an hour leases another 20 years. and a half from San Francisco. Why does the park defend One of the places they came the ranches so adamantly? It is closest to developing was LiTule elk beside the Tomales Point fence. Photo partly because of the ranches’ mantour Beach, now a popular courtesy of Jack Gescheidt. deep roots in the land, and parttourist destination and home ly because of ranchers’ claims that they were instrumento 143 Tule elk. Visitors to Limantour can find, nestled tal in the creation of the park 60 years ago when urban among the remote, elk-studded, windswept sand dunes, a development threatened the entire seashore. 1960s-style model home showing how close Point Reyes Ranching in Point Reyes began with Mexican cattle came to urbanization. ranches in the early 19th century, but the first large dairy The classic story, as recounted by many guidebooks operations that the park is famous for today were begun and the National Seashore website, is one of cooperation by Vermonters in 1857. James and Oscar Shafter, both and compromise between passionate lawmakers and lawyers from Vermont based out of San Francisco, saw ranchers, united by a common drive to preserve Point an opportunity to market high-quality dairy products Reyes’s natural beauty from looming urbanization. A law
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