California elk to roam free in Point Reyes as officials announce that deadly two mile-long fencing will finally be dismantled

The infamous 8ft wall was built to fence the animals off from nearby beef and dairy ranches in the area, but has led to the elk being blocked from accessing essential food and water during droughts.

Tule elk at Point Reyes.

A controversial miles-long fence that led to the deaths of hundreds of elk in California will finally be dismantled after years of controversy.

The 2.2-mile fence was originally built at Point Reyes National Seashore in 1978 to keep tule elk confined and away from nearby beef and dairy ranches in the area. 

However, the 8-foot-tall fence essentially confined the free-roaming wild animals into a single reserve and restricted their movement so that they could not venture outside of the fenced zone. 

During droughts in California, the fence ultimately proved deadly as hundreds of Tule elk have suffered slow and agonizing deaths after they were unable to access adequate forage and water. Records show that over 475 tule elk have died over the course of a decade as a result of the fence.

The fence and its controversies has resulted in significant media coverage, with animal welfare and wildlife groups spending years campaigning for its removal, and a long-running public saga has seen volunteers carry water for miles to help prevent the animals dying from thirst. 

Now, the National Park Service has announced this week that the tule elk enclosure fence will be removed as part of its management of the Tomales Point area.

California’s Point Reyes National Seashore.

"The benefit of removing this enclosure is to allow elk to access additional habitat, increase the species’ population resilience during drought, and promote a more natural population cycle", said Anne Altman, the park’s superintendent.

Altman said that the removal plans incorporated feedback from over 35,000 public comment letters. 

With the fence dismantled, the elk who are currently restricted to a reserve of 2,600 acres will be able to roam to other, wetter areas of the park’s entire 71,000 acres.

In Defense of Animals, one of the campaign groups which has spent years calling for the fence’s removal, explains that the new “fence-down freedom” will improve the health of the herd, and significantly reduce the number of pain, slow elk deaths from thirst and starvation during the state’s hot and dry summer and autumn seasons. 

“We are grateful to the NPS for taking this critical step to free the Tule elk, who have endured immense suffering behind this lethal fence for decades,” said Lisa Levinson, Campaigns Director at In Defense of Animals. “This decision begins to restore public trust in the agency’s ability to prioritize wild animals over private profit in a national park.”

While the National  Park Service’s announcement has been greeted with wide approval, the California Cattlemen’s Association has already filed a lawsuit attempting to halt the process. 

A tule elk in Point Reyes.

The farms in the area, which lease their land from the public, say the elk graze their land. 

But it is these same farms that have been accused of polluting the Seashore park. There are approximately 4,500 cows in the park, which campaigners say violate the Clean Water Act and California state and Marin County regulations by polluting streams and lagoons with manure. 

A cattle disease known as Johne’s which is rampant on the park’s ranches has also spread to the elk population. 

“The actions of ranchers — paid hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to leave decades ago — are clinging to their cash cows and fighting tooth and nail to continue exploiting Point Reyes’ ecosystems, animals, and workers”, Levinson added. “Let there be no doubt: so-called ‘small, organic, family farms’ bear the responsibility for this kind of devastation not just in this national park unit, but across the country.”



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