National Park Service Starts Removing Fence Blocking Tule Elk Access to Food and Water in Point Reyes

Contact: media@aldf.org

SAN FRANCISCO — The Point Reyes National Seashore’s final plan for the management of the Tomales Point area in Marin County, California includes the removal of the fence that has restricted the access of a dwindling population of Tule elk to sufficient food and water. On Tuesday, National Park Service workers began physically taking down the fence. These actions follow a lawsuit filed in June 2021 to compel the National Park Service (NPS) to take action that would prevent the starvation and dehydration of the imperiled animals. That lawsuit was filed by the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) and local residents, represented by Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic.

The case was filed in an effort to save the Tule elk in the region after several years of the animals’ numbers plummeting due to a lack of critical resources as conditions in the area were worsened by droughts. The lawsuit alleged that the NPS violated its mandatory duty to revise the general management plan “in a timely manner” as it was more than forty years old. The case was appealed in February 2023 after the district court ruled in favor of the NPS. 

“The beloved Tule elk of the Point Reyes National Seashore have struggled to survive under worsening drought conditions without the natural resources they desperately need to thrive,” said ALDF Executive Director Chris Green. “When local advocate and former ALDF staffer Kay Wood first approached me about the plight of the Tule elk in 2020, I was appalled. The decision to remove the fence after the persistent advocacy on this issue from ALDF and our colleagues will help support the remaining Tule elk in the region. The Tule elk now will have an increased chance of survival with the final plan, and we will continue to work toward ensuring that it is effectively implemented.” 

“The National Park Service’s issuance of the decision to remove the elk enclosure fence is a critical step in ensuring the welfare of the Tule elk at Point Reyes National Seashore,” said Animal Law & Policy Clinic Director Mary Hollingsworth. “This win is a culmination of years of tireless advocacy by our clients, Laura Chariton and Jack Gescheidt. I’m proud that the Harvard Animal Law & Policy Clinic and our student clinicians, in particular, were able to support their efforts.” Rebecca Garverman, Kate Hendrix, and Katherine Meyer also assisted on legal and regulatory actions to help the Tule elk while at the Harvard Clinic.  

While the lawsuit appeal was pending, NPS undertook regulatory action to propose and finalize a new Tomales Point plan. In October 2023, ALDF, with several individual animal advocates and represented by the Harvard Law School Animal Law & Policy Clinic, submitted comments to the NPS, urging the agency to implement a proposed action plan, the Tomales Point Area Plan (TPAP) public scoping newsletter “Alternative B,” with certain modifications, to help conserve the native Tule elk population in the region. The “Alternative B” option was chosen by the NPS as its final plan, which would remove the fence restricting the movement of the Tule elk.  

Tule elk are a native California subspecies, but their population plummeted to near-zero during the 1800s; they were reintroduced in the 1970s, and their population in the Point Reyes area now numbers in the hundreds. In 1978, the NPS erected an eight-foot-tall fence around the Tomales Point peninsula to isolate the reintroduced elk from nearby dairy ranches. The fence traverses the entire width of Tomales Point, preventing the elk from gaining access to any food or water that is south of the fence. In 1998, NPS issued its Tule Elk Management Plan, which was intended to govern the management of the elk for no more than 10 years but has remained in place since it was first issued. The inability of the elk to access food or water outside of the fenced area has led to deaths from starvation and dehydration of Tomales Point Tule elk in large numbers. Between 2012 and 2015, the Tule elk population crashed from 540 elk to 283, a loss of 257 elk. Prevented by the fence from traveling further in search of food and water, more than 150 additional elk died in 2020 alone — over a third of the entire Tule elk population at Tomales Point.

The day after the final management plan was released, the California Cattlemen’s Association, which represents ranchers and beef producers, filed a legal challenge against the Department of the Interior and NPS in an effort to halt the removal of the fence.

For more information, visit aldf.org.