The January 2025 Point Reyes National Seashore settlement agreement ended decades of conflict over management of cattle ranching and wildlife on public lands. The departure of most of the commercial ranches from our National Park along with the Revised Record of Decision and new management approach by the National Park Service will provide significant public interest and ecological benefits.
Public Access Over Private Profits
Point Reyes will now be managed primarily for the benefit and enjoyment of the 2.5 million annual park visitors, as habitat for the 684 different vertebrate wildlife species that inhabit the peninsula, and to promote and restore native vegetation and natural ecosystems, rather than for 13 ranching families.
The public will have access to 17,000 additional acres of public land that were formerly inaccessible behind barbed wire fences. Fences will come down, and ‘no trespassing’ signs will be removed. The Park Service plans to develop new hiking, biking and equestrian trails, as well as campsites and day-use areas within the former ranch lands. The Park will adaptively reuse ranch buildings for conservation, employee housing, and to enhance interpretation and education programs for the public.
A More Beautiful Park
The aesthetic improvements alone will be significant, with the removal of landscape-blighting industrialized dairy facilities, harsh nighttime lighting that interferes with dark-sky viewing of the stars, abandoned ranch vehicles and trailer homes, and considerable trash. The miles of barbed wire cattle fencing throughout the park had created a hostile and unwelcoming experience for many visitors and prevented public access to much of the Park lands. There will also be a significant reduction in the olfactory assault on Park visitors from cattle manure, in piles and sewage ponds, and no more broadcast spreading of liquid manure onto Park grasslands.
Reduced Taxpayer Subsidies
The new era marks a reduction in taxpayer subsidies for private ranching businesses to operate on these public lands. The Point Reyes ranching families were paid an independently determined fair market value by the public in the 1960s and 1970s (the equivalent of approximately $400 million adjusted to today’s dollars) to purchase the lands that are now Point Reyes National Seashore. Most ranches signed 20-year lease-back agreements for continuing to graze on the now public lands but immediately hired lobbyists to try to remain indefinitely.
Since the park’s inception, the ranches have benefited from grazing leases well below market rates and low-cost housing. The public paid for repairs and improvements to infrastructure and facilities used and damaged by ranches, including roads, fencing, septic systems, and ranch buildings. Taxpayers spent nearly $1 million each year to mitigate and manage the environmental impacts of the ranches (for range management, water development, control of weeds spread by livestock, addressing water pollution caused by livestock, environmental compliance, project coordination, and monitoring).
Economic Benefits from Tourism
There are massive benefits to the local economy from Point Reyes National Seashore visitors and wildlife viewing. People come from around the world to view the tule elk, native wildlife, and nearly 500 species of birds, and to visit Park beaches, trails, and campgrounds. The former income from ranching in the Park was a small fraction of the income from the tourism and recreation economy, according to a 2006 Economic Impacts Study by the Park Service. In 2022, tourism to Point Reyes National Seashore contributed $117 million to the local economy and visitor spending supported 1,120 jobs in nearby communities. In contrast, direct agricultural income from ranching at both Point Reyes National Seashore and the GGNRA was less than $7 million in 2005. With lands formerly locked behind barbed-wire now fully open to the public, Point Reyes ecotourism will only increase with better trails, less barbed wire and manure, and increased habitat and more abundant wildlife.
Transparency in How the Park is Managed
The public gets improved transparency, with the Park Service committing, for the first time in the park’s history, to publish all Ranch Operating Agreements and water quality and grazing management plans for each remaining ranch on the NPS website. The public can now track ranching operations to ensure they comply with the management plan, Endangered Species Act, and Regional Water Board water quality requirements moving forward. Any proposed new ranching activities not covered in the revised management plan will require a public environmental review process.
Healthy and Free-Roaming Elk Herds
Point Reyes National Seashore is the only National Park where tule elk occur. The 1978 elk reintroduction to Point Reyes initially confined elk to Tomales Point, where they were prevented by a fence from moving to find reliable water sources and thus suffered huge die-offs during drought due to starvation, dehydration, and reproductive failure. The Park Service finalized a Tomales Point Management Plan in 2024 that removes the controversial elk-killing fence, and will no longer manage Tomales Point as an elk zoo.
In 1998 the Park Service translocated elk to the Limantour area, initiating free-roaming herds in the Park. Ranch leaseholders began demanding removal or killing of free-roaming elk once their numbers expanded and elk began eating grass they believed should be reserved solely for their cattle. The former 2021 park plan had prioritized private cattle ranching at the expense of elk expansion and authorized annual killing and hazing of tule elk within the park to reduce competition with grazing cattle.
Under the revised management plan, elk will now be allowed to roam free and expand throughout the park, with no fencing, hazing or shooting of elk. Grazing elk will have priority over cattle in former ranch lease areas. Point Reyes has the potential to support large, free-roaming elk herds, which is particularly significant for a species that nearly went extinct, was down to only a few reproducing elk by the late 1800s and suffers from a genetic bottleneck. Large elk herds at Point Reyes can help restore coastal prairie native plant communities, could be used to help diversify the genetic portfolio of the other 21 tule elk herds around the state, and their increasing numbers could attract predators such as mountain lions and bears back to the peninsula.
Cleaner Water
Ranching has degraded water quality, wetlands, and stream habitats throughout Point Reyes, contributing to violations of state water quality standards and consuming large amounts of surface water and groundwater that native wildlife relies upon. The Park Service’s 2013 Coastal Watershed Assessment for Point Reyes documented extensive water pollution from cattle ranching in the park and identified bacterial and nutrient pollution from dairies and ranches as the principal threat to water quality. The Park Service had allowed dairy ranches to spread liquid cattle manure on grasslands throughout the park, a practice now prohibited under the new management plan. The Park Service abruptly ended its water testing program after the 2013 assessment, making it easier to dodge controversy, enforcement, and remediation by collecting no evidence.
Cattle waste actually landed Point Reyes on the ‘Crappiest Places in America’ list in 2017 due to pervasive water contamination by cattle feces. Conservation groups began their own water quality testing at Point Reyes, hiring an environmental engineer to conduct monitoring, and in 2021 and 2022 released the most rigorous independent water quality reports ever for Point Reyes. It found significant water pollution from cattle ranching and revealed elevated bacteria levels in five waterways dangerous to public health and the environment. Concentrations of fecal coliform from cattle posed an unacceptable health risk to park visitors for wading, swimming, kayaking or other forms of water recreation in Kehoe Lagoon and Drakes Estero, and for shellfish harvesting in Drakes Estero. This degree of water pollution, which threatens aquatic wildlife habitat and public health, shouldn’t be happening anywhere and definitely not in a national park.
An End to Overgrazing
There have been numerous studies and ecological surveys showing cattle grazing degradation and impacts to air, water, soil, vegetation, and wildlife in Point Reyes, most notably the Park Service’s own Environmental Impact Statement in 2019.
The revised plan will end overgrazing of cattle across most of Point Reyes National Seashore, resulting in significant reductions in erosion and soil loss, water pollution, degradation of wetland and stream habitats, and spread of invasive plants. It will allow formerly suppressed wildlife populations to recover and thrive. Invasive plants in the Scenic Landscape Zone will no longer be spread or maintained by cattle grazing, silage production, and importation of hay.
Under the new plan, the two remaining beef ranches at Point Reyes will have more robust measures to reduce cattle impacts, improve endangered species habitat, protect riparian buffers, improve water quality, and reduce erosion.
Commercial livestock grazing will no longer be allowed on the 17,000 former ranchland acres that will be rezoned as “scenic landscape.” The Park Service will lease these lands to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as restoration leases, for the purposes of providing conservation and public benefits. TNC management will include some seasonal, targeted cattle grazing to support desired environmental and ecological conditions and will likely also include natural disturbance using beneficial fire and tule elk grazing. Elk grazing is prioritized in the scenic landscape zone over cattle grazing. Targeted grazing on TNC conservation leases will need to be managed for ecological management objectives, including improving native plants, restoring coastal native grasslands, reducing non-native vegetation, improving water quality, riparian and watershed function, reducing soil erosion, improving wildlife habitat, managing fire risk, maintaining Historic Districts and cultural resources, and providing public access and enjoyment.
The era of overgrazing of cattle will come to an end across thousands of acres of the National Seashore, with TNC leases only allowing seasonal, rotational cattle grazing at much lower intensities and duration. Grazing pressure will average around or under 600 Animal Units (AU) throughout the scenic landscape, with a maximum cap of 1,200 AU (which represents at least a 70% reduction in cattle on these lands), and grazing pressure will fluctuate with resource conditions and drought, with the needs of tule elk taking precedence. Barbed wire fencing will be removed and any new fencing would be wildlife-friendly; some may be replaced with temporary electric and virtual fencing. The Park Service may enter into future non-commercial conservation-oriented leases and restoration and management activities, including traditional Indigenous burning as an alternative to livestock, with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, non-profit entities, and conservation groups.
Protection of Endangered Species
Federal wildlife management agencies had documented extensive harm and damage to habitat for endangered and threatened species at Point Reyes from cattle grazing and livestock operations. Biological Opinions in 2002 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and 2004 by the National Marine Fisheries Service found that ranching operations were likely to adversely affect endangered animals such as coho salmon, Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, California red-legged frog, western snowy plover, and Myrtle’s silverspot butterfly, and overgrazing by cattle was damaging endangered plants including Beach layia, Sonoma alopecurus, Sonoma spineflower, Tiburon paintbrush, and Tidestrom’s lupine.
Cattle in Point Reyes and the GGNRA had previously caused significant damage to stream and riparian habitat for salmon and steelhead, even as the Park was slowly working to fence cattle out of stream and riparian areas critical for fish. The operations of the dairies and ranches artificially elevated raven populations, leading to increased raven predation on snowy plover eggs and chicks, and trespass cattle had also trampled into off-limits plover nesting areas. Overgrazing by cattle was documented to negatively impact other rare plants at Point Reyes, such as Marin dwarf flax and beach layia. Livestock overgrazing was eliminating the required host plants and trampling butterfly larvae for the endangered Myrtle’s silverspot butterfly. Runoff from Point Reyes ranches containing fecal coliform pollution from cattle waste and nitrogen laden manure was even sickening and killing pregnant elephant seals in the park. Former ranch activities including mowing, harvesting silage, or occasional tillage during the nesting season was also documented destroying nesting birds and eggs, killing bird fledglings, and causing adult grassland nesting birds to abandon their nests.
Some of the endangered plants at Point Reyes can benefit from disturbance, which reduces competition from non-native invasive plants. This beneficial disturbance can be controlled burning, browsing by elk, or carefully managed, seasonal, rotational grazing using cattle, as is planned for the TNC leases. The revised management plan will continue maintenance and restoration of former livestock ponds for the benefit of California red-legged frogs.
Reduce Livestock-borne Diseases
Johne’s disease is a ruminant wasting disease amplified by ungulate confinement and which affects two-thirds of the nation’s dairy cow herds. This pathogen is known to cause Krohn’s disease and other forms of intestinal disorders when passed to humans. Point Reyes cattle introduced this disease to native wildlife in the park, and the Park Service documented in its 1998 elk management plan that Point Reyes cattle spread the disease to Point Reyes elk. The pathogens that cattle shed into the soil will die within a year unless the soil is reinfected, so the removal of cattle could make the land safer for elk, deer, rabbits, and people in a short time.
Ending Chronic Lease Violations
A 2015 Freedom of Information Act request to the Park Service released documents showing chronic violations of grazing leases by ranches, such as overstocking cattle, allowing cows to trespass into off-limits and sensitive areas, harassing and chasing elk with off-road vehicles and dogs, illegal dumping of debris (including barbed wire strands that risk elk entanglement), and improper disposal of dead cows. Unfortunately, that was not the end of continuing lease violations and natural resource damage by ranches. In 2022, research by conservation groups, reports from the public, and inspections by other agencies uncovered a massive toxic waste dump, illegal bulldozing of a creek and riparian area, and leaking raw sewage.
Unprecedented Restoration Opportunities
The new management plan allows for unprecedented natural ecosystem restoration opportunities at Point Reyes. There is potential for a renaissance of the formerly extensive coastal prairie on the peninsula to the west of Inverness Ridge, to eliminate invasive annual grasses and forbs that were spread and maintained by cattle grazing and return the native grasses and wildflowers with which Point Reyes animals and insects evolved. The 17,000 acres being rezoned to scenic landscape can be managed to improve native plants, restore coastal native grasslands, reduce non-native vegetation, and improve riparian and watershed function. The TNC management plans for these lease lands, including targeted grazing plans, scenic landscape goals, annual reports, monitoring results, and each year’s plans will be publicly available and subject to environmental review. Local conservation, restoration, and nature education organizations are ready to provide volunteers and funding to help restore these lands to natural ecosystems.
The Park Service has an extensive history of natural restoration projects at Point Reyes. The Giacomini Wetland Restoration Project removed former ranch levees constructed at the southern end of Tomales Bay for roads and dairy farms that had hydrologically disconnected Lagunitas Creek and its tributaries from their floodplains. The 2008 breaching of the levees reintroduced tidal flooding to the restored Giacomini Wetlands. The Park Service has conducted coastal dune habitat restoration and coho and steelhead restoration projects in Pine Gulch, Redwood, Olema, and Lagunitas creeks and their watersheds, including fencing cattle out of salmon streams and riparian areas.
In 2012, the Secretary of Interior decided not to renew a commercial lease for the Drakes Bay oyster farm owned by one of the Point Reyes beef ranchers, citing the 1976 law passed by Congress sunsetting the lease and designating Drakes Estero to be managed as a wilderness area at the end of 2012. The Drakes Estero Restoration Project cleaned up this amazing estuary at the heart of the National Seashore, stopping the oyster farm’s spreading of invasive species that were killing the estuary’s important eelgrass bed habitat. The Park Service removed massive amounts of oyster farm trash and debris, including five miles of pressure-treated wooden oyster racks weighing nearly 500 tons, several acres of underwater plastic, metal, and shell debris weighing nearly 1,300 tons, and removing plastic, metal, and cement trash from sandbars where one-fifth of California’s harbor seal pups are born and raised. The removal of the oyster farm and cleanup of Drakes Estero is a restoration success story, with dramatic resurgence of eelgrass habitat (a critical nursery for fish, crabs and other shellfish, leopard sharks, and bat rays) and even the return of an incredibly rare southern sea otter in 2021.
A Truly Climate Friendly Park
In 2008, Point Reyes National Seashore was designated as a Climate Friendly Park and developed a Climate Action Plan to attempt to reduce the park’s carbon footprint. The extensive ranching and dairying activities in the park subverted these goals. Cattle have been the overwhelming source of greenhouse gases at Point Reyes, far more than emissions from visitor cars. A 2019 draft Environmental Impact Statement (pages 188-194) quantified that ranching activities and livestock emissions were responsible for 87% of the park’s CO2 equivalent emissions (24,611 of 28,345 metric tons per year). Methane produced by cattle is a greenhouse gas 25-100 times worse than carbon dioxide. Globally, livestock emissions account for 13.5% of greenhouse gas emissions.
The conversion of native coastal grasslands with their deep-rooted perennial bunchgrasses to shallow-rooted annual plants that die every year, giving up their carbon to the atmosphere, has for decades minimized the amount of soil carbon stored in the pastoral zone. Restoration of native plan communities and elimination of invasive weeds will increase the soil’s ability to store carbon on Point Reyes.
The departure of all of the dairy operations and most of the beef cattle ranches from Point Reyes National Seashore will help the park to attain climate reduction goals. The anticipated development under the new plan of park shuttles to reduce car trips will further these climate goals.
Honoring Indigenous History
Trampling cattle and other ranching activities at Point Reyes caused damage to Indigenous archaeological sites, which extensively documented through research by Sonoma State, and led to a 2008 proposal for an Indigenous Archaeological District in the park. Yet the Park Service in 2015 terminated a National Historic Register proposal which would have protected and preserved more than 150 Miwok Indian archaeological sites in the park dating back thousands of years, and instead fast-tracked approval of an “Historic Dairy Ranching District” designation to attempt to justify continuing ranching operations known to harm the environment and archaeological sites. The Coast Miwok Tribal Council, lineal descendants of the original inhabitants of Point Reyes, formally objected to the park’s 2021 Point Reyes ranching and elk-killing plan.
In a significant change of emphasis, the Park Service has now signed a co-management agreement for Point Reyes with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (the federally recognized tribe in the area) and will consult with the tribe on elk management, beneficial use of fire, ecosystem management, and protection of culturally significant sites.
Park Service Focus on Mission
The new management plan will allow the Park Service to switch emphasis from managing private commercial businesses within a national park to fulfilling its mission to preserve the natural and cultural resources of Point Reyes for the enjoyment of the public. Point Reyes National Seashore was established for the purposes of “public recreation, benefit, and inspiration.” The Point Reyes Act did not designate ranching as a purpose of these public lands and did not encourage or require the Park Service to continue to allow private ranch leases in perpetuity. It does require the Park Service to ensure the “maximum protection, restoration and preservation of the natural environment” of the seashore, thereby prioritizing this duty above all other uses of these public lands, including ranching.
The new management plan will prioritize management of the national seashore that is much more aligned with how the public wants Point Reyes to function. The Park Service’s unpopular and controversial 2019 update its General Management Plan, which led to the 2022 litigation by conservation groups, was vociferously opposed by the general public. More than 7,600 comments were received, an analysis of which showed that 91 percent opposed the plan to continue ranching and 94 percent of those with any preference favored the plan alternative that would have eliminated ranching altogether.
No Further Privatization of the Park
The Park Service’s 2014 Ranch Comprehensive Management Plan and 2021 Record of Decision for a plan amendment both would have adopted a private ranching wish list to enshrine private commercial businesses and further privatize the Park by expanded the lands open to ranching, quadrupling the length of ranching leases, allowed ranches to expand their operations with new commercial activities, required killing native tule elk to protect ranch profits, and allowed ranching to continue in perpetuity through an unreasonably permissive succession plan. The new 2025 management plan realigns the 17,000 acres of former ranchlands to prioritize public access and benefits.
But now private agricultural interests such as Straus Family Creamery, Niman Ranch, and Andrew Giacomini are filing lawsuits trying to overturn the settlement and spreading misinformation about the revised management plan, in an attempt to insert private commercial operations back into the park. Commercial agriculture and anti-public lands interests are asking Trump administration to intervene and overturn the Point Reyes settlement. Unknown parties have orchestrated a coordinated disinformation campaign to discredit the deal, with “influencers” across social media spreading identical, false soundbites.
Potential Future Zoning Adjustments for Resource Benefits
The revised plan allows future buyouts of additional ranch leases and lease relinquishment both in Point Reyes National Seashore and the northern district of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Park Service can re-zone a ranch property into the scenic landscape zone if a ranch family retires, or if a lease is revoked and the Park Service determines that commercial ranching is no longer appropriate on that allotment. Those lands would then be managed for public access and enjoyment and natural resource protection and restoration.
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