Officials at the Point Reyes National Seashore are taking the right and humane approach in providing additional water to the herds of elk that roam across the national park.
Federal park rules largely discourage human interventions in the natural habitat, but the park’s containment of some herds leads to a different strategy. Because the elk cannot leave the park or even areas of the park to search for water, it is necessary for human intervention and bringing water to them during periods of extended drought.
Three water troughs have been located in the 2,600-acre Tomales Point Preserve, one of the park’s three elk preserves.
There are two other herds, one around Limantour and the other near Drakes Beach. Elk were reintroduced to the park in 1978 and their herds have grown, drawing complaints from ranchers.
Park officials have kept an eye on nature’s water supplies — creeks and streams — as well as manmade stock ponds before taking action.
Critics of the park’s strategy — those who claim the park’s historic dairy and cattle ranches are cruelly restraining the elk — made headlines over the past year when they brought in water for the fenced-in elk.
Drought conditions have taken a toll on the elk population. Over the past year, for instance, the number in the Tomales Point herd has sharply dropped from 445 elk to 293 elk.
Park naturalists have attributed this and other recent declines to poor nutrition levels of the forage grasses on which elk feed, not necessarily a lack of drinking water.
Park officials’ drafting of an updated park management plan that includes provisions for extending the terms of the ranch leases has drawn protests from some environmental organizations who contend the ranches and their stock should be phased out and the elk allowed to roam freely across the seashore’s 71,000 acres.
Even then, their population would be constrained and could face the same “carrying capacity” problems.
The National Park Service’s draft plan, however, recognizes the history and community value of active ranchlands in the park and West Marin, which relies on a strong, but fragile local agricultural industry.
But that plan also has to be responsible when it comes to preserving a healthy elk population.
Those elk have become an iconic mark of the seashore since. But their numbers could grow beyond the so-called “carrying capacity” of the park’s confines.
Their population would need to be kept in check, either by nature or human intervention, such as a regular culling of their population.
The latter is the controversial part of the park service’s plan, but it is a practice used in other parks.
Officials say they had looked into moving part of the herd to other state or federal parkland, but because of a disease that’s been found in the Point Reyes herd, that plan was scuttled, as authorities don’t want to further its spread.
In recent years, nature has done the culling, as seen from the wide fluctuation of the size of the herds.
But park officials also recognize that nature’s process has been altered by the geographic containment of the herds. That human intervention compels officials to respond humanely and provide adequate water supplies for the herds. Such action could also help reduce ranchers’ complaints about elk bounding over fences to consume forage and water left for cattle and cows.
Across 71,000 acres, there should be room for both, room for elk to roam and thrive and for ranches that are models of environmentally sound agricultural practices.
The park service is doing the right thing by responding to drought conditions in a proactive and humane way. Making sure they have water is a humane act. That this is only June signals the potential severity of a summer and early fall of parched conditions.
