A National Seashore that truly honors the history of the Coast Miwok in Point Reyes, preserving important cultural and historic sites, as well as taking care to respect and encourage indigenous participation.
The preservation, stewardship, and restoration of the entire Coastal Prairie Ecosystem where wildlife can flourish and be undisturbed and unpolluted by the extractive commercial ranching found across Marin County.
A National Seashore that works to attract a wider variety of people, while protecting the ecology and is accessible to low income communities from the Bay Area and protected for use by the countless generations to come.
Point Reyes will become a component of the 30 by 30 plan and function as an important Carbon Sink on the West Coast as it's our ONLY National Seashore on this side of the Continental U.S.
On April 22, the California Coastal Commission held a virtual hearing to discuss the impact of dairy and cattle ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore. Superintendent Craig Kenkel began his presentation with the words, “Point Reyes is the ancestral home of the Coast Miwok.”
Kenkel spent the rest of his talk advocating for a Park Service proposal to increase the terms of ranching leases from five to 20 years.
Right now, the National Park Service is rewriting its General Management Plan for Point Reyes National Seashore, and the agency must decide whether to sunset the expired livestock grazing leases across tens of thousands of publicly-owned acres, or to continue authorizing unsustainable overgrazing, tillage agriculture and even the killing of native tule elk by extending leases that were never intended to continue on indefinitely.
Tule elk are treasured creatures in California, and for years, animal rights groups have butted heads with the Point Reyes National Seashore over its practice of keeping elk fenced away from nearby cattle ranches.
Amid a dry 2020, the groups tried to bring water to the creatures but were rebuffed by the National Park Service.
LA Times 4/14/21
The National Park Service (NPS) has issued a press release revealing that 152 Tule elk, one-third of the Tomales Point herd, died at Point Reyes National Seashore. The deaths occurred because elk were trapped behind an 8-foot fence
that encloses the park’s Tule Elk Reserve, where the NPS confines the rare elk to keep them off parklands reserved for cattle.
Citing an ongoing die-off of rare Tule elk at Tomales Point Elk Reserve on Pt Reyes Seashore, conservation and animal advocacy groups filed a petition with National Park Service to remove an 8 foot-tall fence that confines the park’s main elk herd to a narrow peninsula that lacks adequate water and forage.
Click here to read the Point Reyes Elk Fence APA Petition to the NPS sent on April 9th, 2021
Mickey Huff of Project Censored Radio
is joined by Peter Byrne, award-winning investigative journalist and
Will Carruthers, award-winning reporter to discuss-
How the NPS is favoring legacy cattle ranches and dairies
over preservation of the land and the survival of the native Tule Elk.
Investigative reporter Peter Byrne takes a close look at the history of PRNS and a look at the controversial plan to extend the leases of cattle ranches and dairies located within the beloved park.
This article spurred pushback from PRNS staff however their statements about the facts presented in the article are demonstrably inaccurate.
Kehoe Lagoon seethes with 300 times the acceptable amount of Enterococcus,
E. Coli's nasty bacterial cousin.
Public records show that Park Service administrators and the California Regional Water Quality Control Board have long known that astronomically high levels of microorganisms flow directly from livestock into the Park’s recreational and fishing waters. And these agencies have done nothing to effectively eliminate the source of the potentially lethal bacterial invasions.
Disregarding climate change, science and more than 7,000 comments from the public, the NPS has released its final General Management Plan Amendment for ranching at Point Reyes Seashore. The plan extends 20-year leases to the 24 ranchers grazing cattle in the Natl. Seashore, allows livestock diversification, and calls for the killing of native Tule elk.
Erik Molvar, Counter Punch 2/21
"Apocalypse Cow" article by P.Byrne heats up the debate. "The National Park Service unit is launching a propaganda war in a desperate effort to control the media narrative, and to cover up decades of laissez-faire mismanagement of livestock operations leasing Park Service lands on the National Seashore..."
Point Reyes National Seashore is under siege by the National Park Service; the organization sworn to protect this fragile and unique ecosystem for the benefit of the public access and recreation, biodiversity and wildlife.
Tule Elk have become the symbol of a battle between private enterprise and public interest.
Shocking two-minute video of our Congressman Jared Huffman offering up California's native Tule elk to Representative Garret Graves (Rep) of Louisiana in his legislative efforts to pass Bill HR 6687 perpetuating private commercial ranching on Point Reyes National Seashore and promoting the killing of native Tule elk.
“An analysis of the public comments submitted to the National Park Service regarding the future management of Pt. Reyes National Seashore shows an overwhelming preference for wilderness and wildlife over commercial ranching and dairies."
- Ken Bouley, concerned local citizen.”
Join Mickey Huff of Project Censored for a discussion with Laura Cunningham and Mark Bartonlini on the conflict of interests and issues of social justice at play in this battle for our national seashore.
Project Coyote, as well as hundreds of other organizations and individuals, submitted comments to the NPS’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement for PRNS and Golden Gate Natl. Recreation Area speaking out against expansion of ranching in the park arguing that such a proposal will only increase conflicts between wildlife and livestock.
Part 2
of a series exploring the old,
but still standing, Tule elk fence while discovering more corpses and and wildlife hazards.
Ranchers at PRNS are wealthier than 90% of the American population and still receive discounted rents, disproportionately low grazing fees and subsidies to support their enterprises - all funded with our tax dollars.
Confused? So are we. Watch to learn more.