A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by animal rights advocates who claimed that mismanagement by the National Park Service was causing the fenced tule elk at Tomales Point to die of thirst and starvation.
The plaintiffs argued that the park had failed to protect the herd by neglecting to adequately update the Point Reyes National Seashore’s 1980 general management plan. The plan requires containing the herd within a three-mile-long fence to keep them off grazing lands leased by cattle ranchers.
In his Feb. 27 ruling, Judge Haywood Gilliam of the Northern District of California acknowledged that the plaintiffs had suffered harm by being confronted by the sight of dead or starving elk in a refuge they frequented for its natural beauty. But he said park biologists had the authority to decide how best to manage the herd. Even if they updated the management plan, he ruled, they had the authority to keep the same policies in place.
“The court is not indifferent to the conditions facing the Tule elk,” Judge Gilliam wrote in his decision. “But Plaintiffs have not identified a viable legal basis that would entitle them, or the Court, to intervene in the Park Service’s wildlife management decisions.”
The plaintiffs will soon decide whether to appeal their case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, according to their attorney, Katherine Meyer, director of the Harvard Law School Animal Law and Policy Clinic. “We see this as a very urgent matter,” Ms. Meyer said. “We think that the National Park Service has a mandatory duty to revise the general management plan in Tomales Point in a timely manner.”
The plaintiffs included the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a Sonoma County nonprofit, and three individuals who said they were anguished and haunted by seeing the animals in such desperate shape. The herd, they maintained, was being denied access to adequate water and forage by being confined behind the fence, a situation made more dire by drought and climate change.
When the suit was filed, the herd was in precipitous decline, dropping by about 150 in the previous year. But according to the latest count from the park, which was released last week, the Tomales Point herd grew from 221 to 262 last year, an increase of nearly 20 percent.
Park officials say the population is subject to cycles of boom and bust. When their numbers grow and competition for available forage increases, the population drops. It recovers when the supply of food becomes sufficient for the reduced herd.
The park service adopted an amendment to the 1980 management plan in 2021 that focused on the park’s historic ranches and dairies and free-ranging elk herds. The updated guidance does not address the Tomales Point elk. After the lawsuit was filed, and as the drought intensified, the park began updating its guidance for the Tomales herd—but not at a pace the plaintiffs deemed necessary.
A native California species, tule elk were once the dominant grazers on the Point Reyes peninsula. But by the mid-1850s, they had nearly disappeared from the area due to hunting and displacement by cattle. They were thought to be extinct until a herd was discovered elsewhere in California two decades later.
In 1978, the park service coordinated with the state to reintroduce the elk to the peninsula, placing two females and eight males in the Tomales Point reserve. Twenty years later, when that herd had outgrown the reserve, the park established a free-ranging herd in the Limantour wilderness area. Some elk from the Limantour herd later crossed Drakes Estero and established a second free-ranging herd near Drakes Beach.
According to the count released last week, the Drakes Beach herd increased from 151 to 170 last year, a 13 percent increase. The count of the Limantour herd could not be completed due to staffing shortages and extreme weather, said Melanie Gunn, a park spokeswoman. In 2021, the Limantour herd stood at 169.
As of 2020, the statewide population of tule elk had grown to 22 herds and 5,700 elk. Like the free-ranging elk near Drakes Beach, some of those herds have come into conflict with ranchers as they compete for forage with beef and dairy cattle.
After the national seashore was created in 1962, ranchers who had been operating on the peninsula since the 1800s were given leases that allowed them to continue. In 2021, park officials agreed to extend their lease agreements to 20-year terms, but a coalition of environmental groups challenged that agreement in a lawsuit.
The plaintiffs in that suit are engaged in ongoing settlement talks with park officials and ranchers. They are expected to update the court on their progress by early April.
Among the matters to be negotiated is the size of the Drakes Beach herd. The updated management plan calls for culling the herd when it exceeds 140—or 30 animals below the current count. The park has suspended culling while the settlement talks are underway.