Cattle Policy Problems in Point Reyes
By Jensen Merten, WELLKIND Forestry Intern
Jensen Merten was an intern for WELLKIND Forestry during our fall 2021 session, exploring the impacts of cattle ranching in Point Reyes and other local environmental issues.
The Point Reyes National Seashore is home to thousands of animals that contribute to a thriving and diverse coastal ecosystem. One of those animals is the tule elk, a subspecies of elk home to California. Point Reyes is the only national park unit where tule elk can be found.
Once thought extinct, the tule elk were introduced into the park in the late 1970s. More than two million people come to visit them every year, looking out at the scenic sunsets and fierce waves crashing against the rocks. What they don’t see is the devastated grasslands where the cattle roam. More than two dozen cattle farms lease the land from the National Parks Service. These cattle farms overgraze the land; devastate the natural environment home to the Tule Elk; and pollute the air, water, and soil.
The tule elk have been cornered and given their own “exclusive elk restoration land,” made to sound like a dream come true or a fancy resort. To see if this was true, I recently visited the park to hike around the tule elk reserve and meet the elk firsthand. Sadly, I couldn't interview them about their opinions on the reserve.
It took six miles to walk from the start to the end of their land, while the drive over, through the cattle ranching land, was much longer than that. The elk reservation is not only smaller in size, but much different than the surrounding cattle resort. The cattle get to have a 24/7 buffet and have overgrazed the ground for hundreds of miles. The grass couldn’t have been higher than four inches. In the summer the grass is brown and dead while the elk’s is lush, because of the cattle overgrazing. As much as it sounds like the elk are the ones living the high life, they are not.
The cattle ranchers and politicians, like Senator Dianne Feinstein and House Representative Jared Huffman (a former environmental lawyer at that), have encouraged the National Park Service to prioritize the cattle ranches over the wellbeing of the elk and many other environmental concerns. The Park Service’s land management plans (the most recent from September 2021) have expanded the cattle ranching space and the commercial exploitation of Point Reyes. These commercial expansions put the endemic tule elk at risk, as well as causing harm to the park’s ecosystems at large.
In 2017 The Park Service hired a contractor to do an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Many people, ranging from local tourists to environmentalists who disagreed with the EIS, have written 7,627 comments to date, many detailed and factual. The Park Service has not released any analysis of them, but did state that 91 percent of them aimed for the elimination of ranching and the restoration of the degraded land.
You would think that if that many people agree that there’s a problem with the EIS and the cattle ranching, the Park Service would recognize that and do something about it to help the environment and prevent future pollution. Instead, the Park Service ignored the environmental risks and concerns brought up in the comments. Instead, they gave permission for more ecological destruction.
A major issue at play here is the massive carbon footprint of the cattle industry. According to Quinton (2017), “Cattle are the No. 1 agricultural source of greenhouse gases worldwide.” Not only is it the biggest contributor to agricultural greenhouse emissions, but “Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere. Even though CO2 has a longer-lasting effect, methane sets the pace for warming in the near term. At least 25% of today's warming is driven by methane from human actions.” (Navarra , n.d.) When cows’ poop decomposes, it releases the methane into the atmosphere: “About 65 percent of cow manure is composed of methane” (Sarah Sanborn, 2013).
In addition, manure emitted from the cows is a very harmful pollutant in the water and soil. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “The manure from a dairy milking 200 cows produces as much nitrogen as is in the sewage from a community of 5,000-10,000 people.” USDA statistical methods state that the cow populations at Point Reyes excrete 130 million pounds of nitrogen-laced manure annually. This manure travels into the soil and any body of water with the next rainfall. If enough manure gets into a body of water that local animals use, it can turn the water green, producing harmful chemicals causing health problems.
The Park Service and the cattle ranchers don’t like the elk roaming into the ranchers’ territory.
The Biden Administration approved a plan on Monday the 6th of September, 2021 with what seems to be a mix of positive and negative outcomes for the elk. Ranch leases increased from five-year terms to up to 20 years, cementing their place in the Point Reyes National Seashore. Moreover, the park staff are now allowed to shoot and kill any tule elk necessary to keep their population at a maximum of 140 (when the plan was originally proposed it was going to be 120).
The silver lining of the plan is that the tule elks’ protected area will increase 580 acres (22%) and the cattle ranching area will decrease by 2,580 acres (9%).
However, while it is good that the NPS is decreasing the geographic scope of the cattle ranching, ultimately, the agency is keeping the population of the elk too low. Moreover, the elk remain in an enclosed space. If you were an elk, would you want to live in a town of 140 neighbors eating the same food in the same spots? Or would you want the freedom to travel to different spots and meet new elk buddies from the next elk town over?
If the National Park Service and the government took action in removing or decreasing the cattle farming taking place in the Point Reyes Seashore, the endemic tule elk species would be able to reclaim their land and prosper in a habitat not overgrazed or polluted by the invasive and nefarious cows. Not only would the tule elk population benefit, the whole world would too. With less methane production, there is less greenhouse gas emissions and less intense global warming.
You can help the tule elk by eating less beef and switching to other forms of meat, like chicken, that have less of an environmental and ecological footprint. If you want to join Jack Gescheidt in his work to help the tule elk and stop the cattle farming, you can always check out upcoming events and rallies on his website: https://treespiritproject.com/events/.
Sources
Photographs by Sarah Killingsworth and Anushka Drescher
Sanborn, S. (2013, August 29). Harnessing the hidden power of Cow Manure. KQED. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from www.kqed.org/quest/57854/harnessing-the-hidden-power-of-cow-manure.
Quinton, A. (2019, June 27). Cows and climate change. UC Davis. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/making-cattle-more-sustainable.
Byrne, P. (2020, December 9). Apocalypse cow: The future of life at point reyes national park. Pacific Sun | Marin County, California. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from pacificsun.com/apocalypse-cow-the-future-of-life-at-point-reyes-national-park/.
Houston, W. (2021, September 15). Point reyes adopts controversial ranch, Elk plan. Marin Independent Journal. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from www.marinij.com/2021/09/13/point-reyes-adopts-controversial-ranch-elk-plan/.
Navarra, K. (n.d.). Cow power. American Chemical Society. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/2019-2020/apri-2020/cow-power.html.