In an unusual step during an environmental assessment process, the Point Reyes National Seashore will hold two community workshops this month to draw more local input for its first ranching management plan, and open up another week-long public comment period.
After a six-week public scoping period this summer, the park is not required by federal law to take additional steps before releasing a draft environmental assessment and plan, which is expected this summer. But seashore spokesperson Melanie Gunn said robust interest from West Marin spurred the park to host the workshops for extra comments—one on tule elk and another on ranching practices like pasture management, diversification of agricultural operations beyond dairying and beef cattle ranching, and succession plans to guide operations after ranchers retire or pass away.
“It’s not typical. It’s sort of an additional opportunity, specifically related to what we’ve heard from the community and the ranchers.
We’re trying to be transparent and have the community involved… There was interest from the community in the park touching base between scoping and when the E.A. comes out,” Ms. Gunn said.
Seashore staff will offer brief opening presentations at both workshops, though breakout discussion groups will comprise the bulk of the meetings. (For those who want to comment but don’t live in West Marin or can’t attend the meetings, which will be held on Nov. 20 and 21, the presentations will be posted on the park’s website. Comments do not have to relate to presentation topics.)
Dave Press, a wildlife ecologist at the seashore, will be one of the presenters during the elk workshop. “We will provide information on the current status of elk in pastoral zone, and some of the available alternatives for managing elk within Point Reyes that have come up for discussion internally… [That will give] a framework for the group discussions, which is the real meat of the entire evening,” he said.
During this summer’s scoping period, the park received over 3,000 comments—from local ranchers, agricultural and environmental groups and West Marin residents, as well as from national organizations and people from around the country (and the world). The comments ranged from in-depth, pages-long discussions and opinions on the history and future of agriculture and tule elk in the seashore, to reams of apparent form letters opposing ranching and four people worried about “tule deer.”
Tule elk, extirpated from California in the nineteenth century, were reintroduced to Point Reyes in a fenced enclosure on Tomales Point in the 1970s. A few free-ranging elk were dropped into the Limantour wilderness in 1998, but their numbers have skyrocketed to well over 100 today and they have since migrated into the pastoral zone, eating forage on some lands that ranchers lease for their cattle, leading to financial losses and concerns over organic certification, as well as other issues like fence damage. Ranchers and agricultural supporters reiterated those frustrations in many of their summer comments, asking the park to remove the elk from the pastoral zone. Others, like the Center for Biological Diversity, asserted that the native elk should be able to roam as they please, and were galled that businesses would take precedence over wildlife.
Comments on ranching practices also ran the gamut, calling for both greater leeway and more restrictions on ranches (or for the end of ranching altogether). Some environmental groups wanted assurances that ranch operations would be ecologically sensitive and voiced concerns over diversification; the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin wrote that silage, the harvesting of forage, can kill nesting birds, and added that legislation creating the seashore didn’t appear to allow for a significant expansion of agriculture beyond dairying and beef cattle.
But ranchers, along with agricultural proponents like the University of California Cooperative Extension, called for greater flexibility for ranchers to run their businesses, given their extensive history with the land and domesticated grazers, and argued that diversification could provide more economic sustainability and hearken a return to Shafter-era ranching.
The Point Reyes National Seashore will host a workshop on ranching practices on Nov. 20, from 3 to 5:30 p.m. and another workshop on tule elk in the pastoral zone on Nov. 21 from 5:30 to 8 p.m., both at the Dance Palace. There will be a public comment period from Nov. 17 to 26. Visit parkplanning.nps.gov/ranchcmp and click on “Open for Comment” to comment online.