Cattle will soon return to an ungrazed stretch of parkland along the east shore of Tomales Bay just north of Point Reyes Station, where wind-ruffled grass has grown tall in the years since livestock were last seen. With the blessing of the National Park Service, rancher Mike Giammona will bring cows back to munch and stomp.
As the Point Reyes National Seashore winds down more than a century and a half of commercial ranching, cattle are vanishing from the peninsula and pastures will revert to a wilder state as part of a sweeping legal settlement. But under the same management, the nearby Golden Gate National Recreation Area is moving in the opposite direction.
After years of negotiations, all seven ranches operating in the G.G.N.R.A. have secured new 20-year leases. Some, like Mr. Giammona, are receiving additional allotments and testing conservation grazing practices on land that has gone fallow. Others are expanding their herds.
“We’ve issued additional allotments that were in the designated ranchland zone—areas that hadn’t been grazed in a number of years,” said Dylan Voeller, the rangeland manager for the Point Reyes National Seashore and G.G.N.R.A. “Those operators will be working to bring those lands back up to speed by rebuilding livestock grazing infrastructure.”
That work, Mr. Voeller emphasized, is guided by ecological goals. “There’s a lot of terms in the leases and operating agreements that are really tied to achieving conservation grazing outcomes,” he said. “As opposed to just a general, you know, do-whatever-you-want outcome.”
Mr. Giammona’s new seasonal allotment—permitted for grazing only in the dry months, from spring through early fall—is located on the former Martinelli ranch, where the well-trafficked Tomales Bay Trail winds from Highway 1 down to marshy tidelands. Planned infrastructure includes portable electric fencing, solar-powered water pumps and measures to protect riparian habitat. A pair of ponds on the 209-acre property support a healthy population of western pond turtles, a freshwater species endemic to the West Coast.
To keep cattle hydrated without disturbing the ponds, Mr. Giammona will employ moveable barriers and solar-powered pumps to draw water into uphill storage tanks, feeding three troughs distributed around the property. A permanent fence will be built along the highway to keep the herd secure.
By closely managing where and for how long cows forage, ranchers can use the animals to strengthen grassland health and biodiversity while reducing fire risk. Mr. Giammona sees an opportunity to reset the narrative about livestock and the land.
“Sometimes animal agriculture gets painted pretty negatively,” he said. “But a lot of what is driving me is that we can really teach the public here. This is one of the busiest trails in the G.G.N.R.A., so it’s a good place to show what we can do, the ways grazing can benefit the land.”
His efforts are supported by a $50,000 grant from the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, one of five conservation grazing grants the nonprofit awarded this year. In total, MALT distributed $200,000 to ranchers countywide, including $40,000 to the McIsaac ranch for water infrastructure improvements on nearby G.G.N.R.A. land.
“There are all these different labels out there—regenerative, sustainable, climate smart,” said Lily Verdone, MALT’s executive director. “But really, they’re just about good practices. You move animals frequently, you rest the land, you’re working toward positive outcomes for the grazing operation and the animals and the environment.”
With little funding to offer, the park service directs ranchers to seek outside resources for any improvements. “With the cuts in D.C. right now, we’re lucky to have found anything to put into this,” Mr. Giammona said. “Without MALT, we wouldn’t be grazing.”
Mr. Giammona has long run a 360-head cow-calf operation on parkland in the Olema Valley, and for over a decade he’s operated Millerton Creek Ranch, a few miles north of his new allotment. But he’s perhaps best known for his other gig: City Sewer Pumping, a family business started by his paternal grandfather in 1951 that has installed and maintained most of West Marin’s septic systems. For his entire adult life, he’s also been a rancher, following in the footsteps of his ancestors in the Central Valley.
“A lot of ranchers aren’t out in the public talking to people, but the other side of my business forces me to have all these conversations,” Mr. Giammona said. “I hear all the positives and the negatives. There’s a fair share of anti-grazing people out there, but for the most part, the feedback has been really positive.”
Reintroducing grazing has support from nearby neighbors, many of whom have been concerned about wildfire, especially since the last grazing operation shut down. That feedback, Mr. Voeller said, played a role in the park service’s decision to bring cattle back to the area.
“We’ve heard from private landowners about fire concerns,” he said. “We did some mowing to mitigate the risk, but grazing as a tool was a good fit there.”
Wildfire risk to homes is especially acute in areas where the built environment meets wild vegetation, known as the wildland-urban interface. These include places like the Tomales Bay Trail, where Point Reyes Station’s mesa neighborhood abuts open space.
Between 1990 and 2020, nearly two-thirds of U.S. wildfires ignited in grasslands and shrublands, according to a 2023 study published in Science magazine.
“Ever since the cows left, I’ve been incredibly concerned about fire risk,” said Sarah Berger, whose home borders the parkland. Over the years, she and her neighbors have mowed a vegetation-free buffer of defensible space. “I’m hopeful having the cows grazing again will just help keep that risk down,” she said.
On Monday afternoon, Mr. Giammona bumped his truck up a rutted track to a rise overlooking the bay. He pointed to a gentle slope thick with dried harding grass, California brome, ryegrass and clover. In some spots, coastal scrub and coyote brush had begun to creep in.
“It takes years to learn a new piece of land,” he said. “But luckily, Dylan’s passed some of the knowledge on to me,” he said of Mr. Voeller, who has worked at the park since 2008.
For Ms. Verdone, the story of grazing in the park isn’t just about what’s ending, but also new beginnings like these.
“So much of the conversation about the seashore has been focused on what’s being lost,” she said. “Although we are losing the dairies, this shows that grazing is a tool needed for managing big open space. It’s critical to be able to do grazing in a way that’s beneficial, both for the rancher and for the environment. And that’s what we do so well in Marin County.”