Controversy Over Tule Elk Conservation On The Rise As California's Drought Worsens

With Miller’s death, though, the protection ended. The ranch was subdivided, hunting resumed, and the elk population dropped to just 28 individuals. Hope seemed lost until another rancher, Walter Dow, brought a group of tule elk to his own ranch and allowed them to thrive, though he kept the herd capped at 500 individuals.

Eventually, California's Department of Fish and Game stepped in and, along with more than a decade of work by conservationists, US Congress agreed in 1976 that federal lands would be made available for reserving tule elk, including the San Luis Wildlife Refuge, Concord Naval Weapons Station, Mount Hamilton, Lake Pillsbury, Jawbone Canyon, Point Reyes National Wildlife Refuge, Fort Hunter Liggett Military Reservation, and Camp Roberts.

Today, there are 22 populations of tule elk throughout California with numbers estimated at around 4,300 individuals.

It seemed like this was a great story of success when I wrote the article. But doesn't address the years of controversy and rivalry between cattle ranchers and the newly rebounded elk herds, which flares up during tough times such as now during a record-setting drought.

Numbers are just one indicator of success for the recovery of a species, but not necessarily the most important. Coexistence with a native species is the ultimate success for conservation. Now that California’s drought is nearing historic proportions with no sign of breaking, tensions are reaching a new high as competition for increasingly dry grazing land tightens. The survival of the tule elk species is still dependent on how ranchers react to their presence even when times are tough, and on how the Department of Fish and Game reacts to pressure from ranchers.

In an LA Times article from December 2014, a rancher leasing 800 acres in Wind Wolves Preserve, about 10 miles west of Bakersfield, calls tule elk “sorry varmints” and “trespassers.” When one is a cattle rancher leasing land in a preserve set aside for wild species, one might reconsider exactly who is the trespasser. Still, this is how many ranchers feel and the Department of Fish and Game is quietly bending to their will.

According to the article, “the agency has quietly stopped expanding herds of the species… Instead, the agency's strategy is to respond to complaints by transplanting ‘excess elk' from one herd to another.”

As elk become plentiful in an area, to the point of causing grumbling from ranchers, a number of them are transported to another reserve.

This strategy has distinct benefits, both in keeping the peace and in keeping the gene pool as diverse as possible, though some conservationists may feel that the relocations are done for the wrong reasons.

“In 2006, the state relocated dozens of tule elk from the San Francisco Bay Area's Concord Naval Weapons Station to make way for subdivisions,” states the article. “This year, dozens of ‘excess elk' were moved from a 750-acre pen in the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge near Merced, Calif., to Wind Wolves in Kern County.”

The Bay Area has its own controversy over tule elk. Commercial dairy farmers leasing land from Point Reyes National Seashore are continually asking park officials to keep elk off land leased for grazing.

The park as a whole is 71,028 acres, and dairy farmers use about 28,000 acres of land in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes seashore.

According to an LA Times article, “The park service charges ranchers a grazing fee of just $7 a month for a cow and a calf. That fee on private land in neighboring communities ranges from $16 to $25. The homesteads where some ranch families live are leased to them by the park at less than market rates.”

The ranchers say that the elk threaten the existence of their business, especially after prolonged drought. But ranchers equally threaten the existence of the elk in drought conditions by pushing for limiting where the elk can roam to get enough food and water.

According to Point Reyes Light, “The fate of many tule elk in the Point Reyes National Seashore last year largely hinged on whether or not they were enclosed in a fence. The fenced herd at Tomales Point dropped by 20 percent during 2014, while the two free-ranging herds grew, according to seashore wildlife ecologist Dave Press. The seashore attributes the success of the free-ranging herds to their ability to seek out forage and water at a time of drought.”