First, it was the Center for Biological Diversity who sent out the intitial press release about the elk that died that started the string of articles, so the animal rights people are speaking out and loudly. Most people do not understand the background of the situation at Point Reyes. In fact there are two completely separate issues going on, let me see if I can clear up a few things. The fenced herd of elk (where they lost about 250 animals) was originally established as part of the tule elk preservation act back in 1970's. shortly after putting a group of elk there (that intermingled with cattle) they were found to have a background rate of Johne's disease. Because of that disease they could not be used to establish new herds in other areas of the state like some of the other fenced enclosures that were established. For years the Park Service used birth control to keep their numbers down, but this is intensive, time consuming, and expensive and has to be done forever and has also effects on the elk themselves (longer estrous, longer rut, hormones, etc). When they did their management plan back in the 90's or early 2000 they said they would no longer do birth control and they expected the population would fluctuate within the enclosure due to environmental conditions. So now you have a drought, there was not enough water (assuming that was the cause) and they lost some elk. But lets play devils advocate, you put water in and the 500 elk survive, now you have 600, 700, 800, etc. You run low on feed, so you bring in feed and water, 1,000, 1,2000, 1,5000 elk. A disease goes through and you lose 1,400 elk. These elk can not be moved to other areas of the state due to the presence of the disease. The Park is testing them as part of an ongoing process and so far all tests have been negative but there is no established protocol to certify them as disease free. The state will not move them unless it can call them disease free (to the extent possible) and potentially move a problem to a new area if they were in fact not disease free. The state is going to be conservative in that aspect. All the other fenced enclosures can have excess animals moved to free range situations to augment existing herds, currently Point Reyes can not. Now you have situation number two, the Park established a free range population some years ago but some of them did not stay in the wilderness area where they wanted them and came down to where the dairies are and cattle ranchers are. Elk being elk have slowly been growing. These are long term leases within the Park. Part of the reason the park was established was to preserve the ranching way of life in Marin County. It is my understanding that the original owners were going to sell to a developer and then sold to the Park, I do not know all the details on that aspect. This was all before elk were re-introduced there. The park is working on a comprehensive plan that includes elk and how they are going to proceed. If nothing is done the elk will continue to grow and further impact cattle and dairy operations within the park, and then eventually grow enough to leave park boundaries and start impacting other property owners (without some means of population control). Hope that at least tries to clear up some of the background
Joe