"Elk Fences Now" is an educational campaign organized to inform the public and to encourage the National Park Service (NPS) to build elk-proof fences to protect Point Reyes Seashore cow pastures from intrusion by wandering elk. The tule elk should be free to roam areas outside the dairies and farms on the beautiful Point Reyes National Seashore, but grazing on farmland has caused destruction and threatens the livelihood of the organic ranchers in the area.

In 1978, the National Park Service introduced a small herd of tule elk to Pierce Ranch.  At that time, the Park built a ten-foot-high fence to contain the elk on Tomales Point, but in 2000 the Park established a new herd near Limantour Beach, and did not build an elk fence. These elk have migrated onto several ranches where they can find plentiful supplies of forage and water.

The Park has made a few attempts to discourage the elk, but nothing is likely to work other than a tall fence. The damage is costing the ranchers financially in lost grazing, lost water supplies, destroyed cattle fencing, and cows who were killed by rutting bull elk. Ranchers whose families have been on the peninsula for up to five generations are at risk of losing their homes and farm businesses. (Read more)

 

Please join us in asking the Park to build Elk Fences Now.