What’s next for Point Reyes

One-time oysterman and long-time welfare rancher at Point Reyes National Seashore, cattleman Kevin Lunny takes his grievances to President Trump. Fast forward to 9:50 to View Lunny at the White House.

Big thanks to all who submitted comments to the Draft Plan for Ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore! The NPS says it received 7,600 public comments to the plan!  This doesn’t include 700 comments that it refused to count collected by ForElk activists who spent months educating folks at farmers markets, film screenings, street fairs, and from their pop-up display outside the Point Reyes Visitor Center. Under the Trump administration censorship has become a growing trend in our government, including at the National Park Service.

The National Park Service’s preferred plan for the Seashore (Alternative B) is a giveaway to the 24 ranchers who continue to pull a living from our national park 50 years after they were paid millions for their land and given 25 years to move out. Alternative B expands agriculture and allows ranchers to grow crops, pigs, sheep, and goats; extends grazing leases for 20-years; and potentially “removes” (aka shoots)  native Tule elk that  graze on parkland reserved for domestic cattle, cutting into ranchers’ profits.  One-third—some 28,000 acres of our national seashore—is reserved for 6,000 domestic cattle.

Clearly, the NPS knows that visitors come to the Seashore to see the wildlife—not cows, manure piles, and feedlots. Yet, the NPS’s priority, expressed in Alternative B, is serving private ranches not the public, even to the point of killing native wildlife to ensure ranchers in the park a profit. Add your comments to the Seashore’s Facebook page.

Cattlemen spend money on political campaigns and lobbyists to push their agenda. Elk do not. It’s no secret that Representative Jared Huffman and Senator Dianne Feinstein court Big Ag. They have been working behind the scenes to permanently instate ranching at the Seashore, despite public opinion; a court-mandated public comment period; and environmental impacts to land, water, climate, and endangered species. Huffman and Feinstein have buried pro-ranching language in appropriation bills and co-sponsored legislation with Republicans intent on handing over our public lands to oil and gas, mining, logging, and grazing interests.

Read:  An important article about the NPS tossing out public comments at Point Reyes

Watch: The award-winning film, The Shame of Point Reyes: shameofpointreyes.org