Animal rights activists have appealed the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that mismanagement by the National Park Service caused a die-off of tule elk at the Point Reyes National Seashore.
The suit charged that the park service’s failure to adequately update its 1980 general management plan had caused the elk that are fenced in at Tomales Point to die of thirst and starvation, a situation made more dire by drought and climate change.
On Feb. 27, Judge Haywood Gilliam of the Northern District of California dismissed the suit. He 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.
The Harvard Law School Animal Law and Policy Program appealed his ruling on April 19 to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The program’s attorneys are representing the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a Sonoma County nonprofit, and three Marin County residents who said they were anguished and haunted by seeing the animals in such desperate shape.
Although the park service recently adopted an amendment to the 1980 management plan that focused on the park’s historic ranches and dairies and free-ranging elk herds, the updated guidance did not address the Tomales Point elk. In 2021, after the Harvard lawsuit was filed and as the drought intensified, the park began updating its guidance for the Tomales herd—but not quickly enough to satisfy the plaintiffs.
“The law plainly requires that the National Park Service revisit its management plan in a timely manner,” said Christopher Berry, the managing attorney of the Animal Legal Defense Fund. “Tule elk will suffer due to any delay, and we are hopeful that the appellate court will recognize that the agency must act promptly.”
The year before the case was filed, the elk population in the Tomales Point reserve fell by about 150. But the park’s most recent count, completed in February, showed the herd had grown from 221 to 262, an increase of 20 percent. Park officials say the population ebbs and flows, dropping as competition for available forage increases and recovering when the supply of food becomes sufficient for the reduced herd.
The park service does not comment on pending litigation. But seashore spokeswoman Melanie Gunn said the park remains committed to developing an area plan for the Tomales Point elk.
In a statement released by the Harvard lawyers, the plaintiffs accused the park service of cruelty.
“In recent successive drought years, I’ve seen emaciated, malnourished elk endure and die from hunger and thirst while trapped there, to benefit cattle ranches,” said Laura Chariton, who served as a volunteer tule elk docent for the seashore for four years.
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 Department of Fish and Wildlife to reintroduce the elk to the peninsula, placing two females and eight males in the Tomales Point reserve. The fence was meant to prevent the animals from competing for water and forage with cows owned by ranchers in the park.
Twenty years later, when that herd had outgrown the reserve, the park established a free-ranging herd in the Limantour wilderness area. According to the park service, some elk from the Limantour herd later crossed Drakes Estero and established a second free-ranging herd near Drakes Beach.
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. In 2021, the Limantour herd stood at 169.
The park service’s updated management plan calls for culling the Drakes Beach herd when it exceeds 140—or 30 animals below the current count—but the park suspended culling while settlement talks are underway in a separate lawsuit over the management plan amendment.