Wild Wars And Peace
We Keep Switching Sides ...
Tule Elk Bull at Point Reyes National Seashore - Photo by Martha Ture
The human race, to which so many of us belong, is deftly vacillating between protecting and destroying ourselves and our fellow occupiers of this planet. I know this deep insight may not have previously come to your attention. Here are some new fact missiles that have recently been shot across the bow.
In Namibia, per the New York Times, the government has embarked on a massive effort to save 1.4 million people from drought and starvation by slaughtering 723 wild animals, including 83 elephants. That’s one animal carcass for every 1,936.37 people.
The animals being killed are large and capable of hurting humans, and are competing with humans for water. The two birds with one stone approach, feeding people and killing the competition, seems zero-sum logical - there’s neither food nor water for people or animals, so the best-armed will win.
Says the Times:
A large conservation reserve across Namibia and four other Southern African countries includes the world’s largest population of African savanna elephants, which are endangered and whose population has more than halved over the last three generations. But in this reserve in recent years, the elephant population was broadly stable, at more than 227,000 elephants, according to a 2022 survey.
But now, with the severe drought, those populations are under threat, and sometimes moving closer to human civilizations.
“Sometimes, you become victim to your own success,” Dr. Zeidler said. “In years and situations of harshness, it’s a bit more difficult to deal, then, with these human-wildlife conflicts.”
I am reminded of the conflict between ranchers and Tule Elk in Point Reyes National Seashore, in California.
In 1951, National Park Service Director Conrad Wirth led a survey of the peninsula to assess its potential as a national park unit. Back then, the entire Point Reyes peninsula was private farmland. But Wirth’s survey also found a wealth of biodiversity, leading him to recommend the area to be protected as a national seashore.
Eleven years later, in 1962, after years of lobbying and environmentalist efforts, Point Reyes National Seashore was created. The federal government acquired the private lands that occupied the peninsula to protect the area’s 460 species of birds, 876 species of plants, and many different rare marine and terrestrial mammals. In 1988, UNESCO designated the national seashore as part of its Golden Gate Biosphere reserve. California has also designated much of the adjoining marine environment as a series of conservation areas: Point Reyes State Marine Reserve & Point Reyes State Marine Conservation Area, Estero de Limantour State Marine Reserve & Drakes Estero State Marine Conservation Area, and Duxbury Reef State Marine Conservation Area.
As might be expected, the ranchers and Marin County Supervisors opposed the creation of the national seashore. Nevertheless, ranchers were paid a substantial amount of money for their properties, often millions of dollars per ranch acquisition.
In a generous concession, the occupants of these buildings and ranchers were not required to leave the parkland immediately. Starting in 1962, ranchers were given a reprieve of 25 years or upon the death of the primary owners (whichever came first) that allowed them to continue grazing and residing in the public’s property. The intention was to sunset agricultural production at the end of that period, but near the end of their leases, the entrenched ranchers successfully lobbied to remain on the seashore. Since then, the 25-year grace period has been extended twice.
About one-third of the 71,000-acre national seashore is designated a “pastoral zone,” where 24 ranch operations graze cattle on 28,000 acres of parkland, as well as 10,000 acres in the adjacent Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
This lease arrangement issue with ranchers came to a head when drought conditions from 2012 to 2014 caused the death of half of the elk population that was trapped behind a fence constructed to keep elk confined to a small, waterless, 2,000-acre parcel of the seashore. Another 150 elk died last year, and environmental activists fear dry conditions in 2021 could once again put the fenced-in herd at risk. The native tule elk are sequestered on 2,000 acres, while domestic livestock is given free rein on 38,000 total acres.
Several proposed amendments failed, including one that would have prevented the Park Service from killing tule elk. Another amendment would have prevented the ranchers from diversifying their operations with other crops. A CCC member from Marin County opposed both.
This plan is in direct violation of the law creating the national seashore. The legislation requires that Point Reyes National Seashore “shall be administered by the Secretary without impairment of its natural values, in a manner which provides for such recreational, educational, historic preservation, interpretation, and scientific research opportunities as are consistent with, based upon, and supportive of the maximum protection, restoration, and preservation of the natural environment within the area.” Permitting continued livestock operations in the park unit is not consistent with the stated legislative goals.
The word “shall” is essential. “Shall” does not give the NPS discretion to favor the ranchers’ interests over protecting the natural environment.
Now, according to the Press Democrat, a closely guarded secret until now, The Nature Conservancy is mediating between ranchers who have been part of the North Bay economy for generations and environmental groups who say the cattle and dairy operations harm wildlife, contaminate waterways with fecal bacteria and otherwise degrade the environment.
Berkeley environmental writer and activist Kenneth Brower, son of the Sierra Club’s first executive director, David Brower, said he found word of the conservancy’s involvement “encouraging.”
“It’s an opportunity for us to restore this national park to what it should be, which it should not be a commercial cattle operation,” Brower said, noting his father was “the tall guy on the far right of the photo” of President John F. Kennedy when he signed the seashore’s enabling legislation in 1962.
Others close to negotiations warn that it’s too early to rush to judgment.
“I would caution people not to speculate about ongoing confidential settlement negotiations,” said North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, who has been an outspoken supporter of the national seashore’s ranching traditions. “It’s always tempting for folks to engage in the intrigue and speculation from outside of the room. But there’s a reason why there’s confidentiality around settlement negotiations, and unless and until we have a deal, everything else is conjecture.”
So we have killed half the Tule Elk by fencing them away from water.
Because cattle, dammit, are money.
I wish the best of luck to the elk and the Nature Conservancy, and to the ranchers.
We really have to learn to get along with one another, Homo sapiens and the rest of us.