After record rains this past winter, Tule elk in the fenced Reserve and in the park’s two other herds all have plenty of water – for now.

Park streams and seeps are flowing everywhere; the land is saturated, warmed by spring sunshine, and bursting bright green with new vegetation, which means more and better food for elk.  This is good news, for now.  But...

...how long this fertile feast lasts depends on when California’s summer-autumn heat begins. And how hot it gets this year. And how long heat (and aridity) lasts into autumn. Weather extremes are now commonplace, so drought might return this year. 

And although county reservoirs are full, elk can't access this water, reserved for humans — and for commercial cattle operations which use far more water than communities do.  (Bet you didn't know that while you're worried about removing your dying lawn or evaporating swimming pool, about 40% of California's precious water goes to animal ag, mostly beef & dairy. That's 4x the 10% human communities use. WATCH THIS 2 MIN. VIDEO

More good elk news: two of Point Reyes' three elk herd populations — in the infamous, fenced Tomales Point Elk Reserve, and at Drake’s Beach — increased since last year’s count. The third herd (at Limantour-Muddy Hollow area) was not counted by the National Park Service, their website explains, due to weather and staffing issues. 

We assume this means the park decided not to spend its limited budget on thorough elk counting. Again, compare and contrast: thousands of tax dollars are spent subsidizing Point Reyes' private cattle ranches, which can't turn a profit without heavy public subsidies. Don't let me get me started... 

What remains unchanged is the cause of hundreds of past — and future — Tule elk deaths: confinement. 

None of the 3 Point Reyes herds are free to roam and reproduce however and wherever they please across the park’s full 71,000 acres. Wild elk are cordoned off inside a national park even though it was created for wild animals to be free, without competing with commercial livestock for their survival. Point Reyes has yet to realize its founding vision: a park for wild animals only.

Tule elk are not welcome to eat on a full one-third of the park; 28,000 acres are rented out to private cattle ranches and off-limits to elk. (But for the occasional, sneaky scofflaw elk.) 

Big Meat and Big Dairy operations take up (and ravage) more land in the American West than do all its cities, and other human uses combined. So, too, do Point Reyes cows run roughshod over the place.

Though Tule elk have plenty of water and forage for now, they remain park prisoners. And prison conditions deteriorate in the hot summer weather.

An elk activist came upon this mature bull (male) Tule elk, on the ground, at dusk, inside the Reserve.  For reasons unknown, the elk was unable to get up, and the activist, powerless to help, was unable to hold back tears.

He recorded the scene knowing it could help save the lives of other elk.  It's a visceral example of how one elk can die, silently, in his park prison. Hundreds have died like this, only to become a single statistic.

If the Reserve's 8-foot-tall fence was dismantled, the elk could roam outside their 2,600-acre compound to find year-round food and water. naturally, over all 71,000-acres of this National Seashore. Their numbers would likely increase, also naturally, with ecosystem benefits. (Unlike parks cows who are forced into being an extractive commodity product.) 

National parks were created for their wild animals to freely move, mate and multiply. But the Tule elk at Point Reyes are penned in; their movements are restricted, and for reason only: the cattle industry has successfully lobbied ($$$$) Washington politicians to keep it this way.  

LEARN MORE or  DONATE TO HELP.

10am Saturday, April 22nd | Tomales Bay State Park

Save hundreds of trees and 2,000 acres of forests from being destroyed.  This Earth Day, Saturday, April 22nd, take a walk in the beautiful forest at Tomales Bay State Park with fellow nature and animal lovers. Just a few miles south of the Tule Elk Reserve at Point Reyes Seashore in Marin County, CA.

Two state agencies, California State Parks and Cal Fire want to hack into and squirt poison onto a healthy forest. They claim chainsaws, chippers, masticating machines and toxic herbicides will "restore" this perfectly healthy forest which is doing its best to survive a heating planet (caused in party by destructive deforestation projects like this one! 

 These make-work "management" projects assault the wildness of the natural world. "Saving" a forest by cutting into it.  
READ MORE ABOUT THIS AWFUL ASSAULT.

Enjoy a unique, community outing to  protect this forest. 
And forests everywhere from similar assaults. 

Bring a picnic have lunch for afterwards and explore this forest's miles of trails, or the beaches on Tomales Bay. 

10am, Sat., April 22nd, Earth Day 2023.

JOIN THE FUN or LEARN MORE.