The National Park Service outlined its controversial plan for removing the Tomales Point tule elk fence last week in an online public information session that gave no hint of the drama surrounding the proposal.

Park officials strictly limited the Zoom discussion to the details of their proposed management plan for the 2,900-acre area that includes an elk reserve, hiking trails and the historic Pierce Point Ranch, which is no longer operating.

To the dismay of some participants, they did not answer questions about how removing the fence would impact the 13 ranches and dairies that operate elsewhere in the Point Reyes National Seashore. Park officials encouraged participants to submit such questions in writing and said they would review them during the ongoing public comment period, which is open through Sept. 25. 

In addition to removing the fence, the park’s proposed Tomales Point Area Plan, or TPAP, would eliminate storage tanks that have provided water for elk during the drought, make the Pierce Point Ranch more welcoming to visitors with improved parking options, and add a spur trail to a viewpoint from the Tomales Point Trail.

Park officials maintain that removing the 8-foot-tall, two-mile-long fence would give the roughly 300 elk in the reserve access to more nutritious forage and water, which have become increasingly scarce due to drought and climate change.

Environmental activists strongly support taking down the fence, but ranchers and dairymen who operate on leased parklands say that removing it would put them out of business. They have long described how the existing free-ranging elk herds elsewhere in the park eat forage intended for cows and damage fences and other farm infrastructure. 

The limited scope of the Zoom session frustrated some participants, including those who believe the park can accommodate both elk and cattle ranches without compromising the environment. 

Gordon Bennett, an Inverness Park resident who once sat on a citizen advisory commission to the park, said meeting moderators declined to answer two of his online queries: How did park officials intend to protect ranches if elk flooded their operations after the fence came down? And how would the park protect elk from a wasting disease carried by cows?

“When they refused to answer my questions about downstream effects on ranches, I was shocked,” Mr. Bennett said. “The whole point of a public scoping process is to encourage people outside the agency to contribute ideas and comments and concerns.”

As they draft the TPAP, park officials follow procedures laid out in the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires them to provide alternatives to any action they propose taking in the planning area. They must conduct an environmental review of each alternative, including maintaining the status quo.

In this case, the central choice is between removing the fence or leaving it up and lethally culling the herd if it grows too large to sustain itself with the forage and water available in the reserve.

NEPA requires officials to solicit public comments in writing. During the online session, they explained the procedures for submitting such comments and stressed that any questions and answers during the webinar would not be part of the public record. 

The park welcomes written comments on the potential impacts that any actions implemented in Tomales Point might have elsewhere in the park, park spokeswoman Melanie Gunn told the Light. Officials will review them during the public comment period and take them into consideration as the park conducts its environmental assessment.

The park plans to finish the assessment in the spring, when it will hold another public review and comment period and an additional informational workshop. It is expected to announce a final decision by next summer.

California’s tule elk had nearly vanished when the Department of Fish and Game reintroduced them to sites across the state, including to Tomales Point in 1978. Two decades later, the population threatened to overwhelm the capacity of the reserve, and the park drafted a management plan that recommended the relocation of some elk to a wilderness area near Limantour Estero. Those individuals eventually formed new free-ranging herds. 

During the recent drought, some elk in the Tomales Point reserve grew sick and died. Activists staged protests and demanded the removal of the fence, and the park began delivering water and mineral licks. In 2021, three environmental groups represented by the Harvard Animal Law and Policy Clinic filed a lawsuit alleging that the elk were dying due to mismanagement. Last February, a federal judge dismissed the Harvard lawsuit, but the plaintiffs have appealed.

Meanwhile, the park, ranchers and environmentalists are engaged in settlement talks in a second suit over whether ranching should be allowed to continue in the park at all. That suit challenged the park’s 2021 update to its general management plan, which allowed for 20-year lease extensions. The update also permitted the park to cull one free-ranging herd that has interfered with ranch operations near Drakes Beach, but it has not done so due to the litigation. 

Three of the dairies in the park supply Straus Family Creamery, which produces organic milk, yogurt and ice cream. Albert Straus of Marshall, the company founder and C.E.O., believes removing the elk fence would mean the end of ranching in the park. 

“We are at a critical point in our Marin farming history,” he said. “If the elk fence is removed, we will not have any ranches or dairies that will survive. Point Reyes National Seashore has 30 percent of the organic dairy farms in Marin County, and the loss of these farms will be devastating to our community.”

To comment on the Tomales Point Area Plan, visit https://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?documentID=131377