By John Beck, Ag Alert
In the 1960s, dairy farmers along the Marin County coast agreed to sell their ranches to the federal government to facilitate creation of the 71,000-acre Point Reyes National Seashore in 1972.
That sales accord created a partnership enabling 27 working ranches to continue operating—scattered between public beaches, hiking trails, campgrounds and, later, a reserve for native tule elk.
But now Tim Kehoe and other Point Reyes dairy farmers say they fear they could be forced to shutter. They argue their way of life has been put in peril by years of environmental lawsuits challenging the U.S. National Park Service’s management of ranching, as well by as a recent proposal by park officials to remove fencing that separates elk from livestock.
“Up until about five or six years ago, we never thought about this coming to an end,” said Tim Kehoe, a third-generation rancher who works a 1,000-acre dairy farm with his two brothers, Tom and Mike.
Their father, Skip Kehoe, was one of the Point Reyes farmers and ranchers who sold properties to enable the national park. Now Tim Kehoe is banding together with a coalition of local family farms to try to save a regional agricultural heritage dating back to the 1850s.
Kehoe said he fears “the nail in the coffin” was delivered this past summer when the National Park Service proposed taking down an 8-foot fence that separates the Kehoe dairy ranch and the 2,900-acre Tule Elk Reserve at Tomales Point.
The fence removal could take effect as early as next August. Without a barrier keeping the elk inside the reserve at the northernmost tip of the park, Kehoe said elk would be allowed to roam freely like two smaller elk herds in the park near Drakes Beach and Limantour. He said he worries about his cows competing with elk for food and water.
Up against the elk fence are 80 acres of silage fields that account for two-thirds of feed for his 400 cows. A pond and a reservoir supply all the water. An elk herd that has already wandered there now drinks out of his cattle water troughs, Kehoe said.
“If you start getting a few hundred elk over there, that will be impacted big time,” he said. “You take the fence down and how many elk will start going into the pastoral area? That’s the question we’ve asked the park: So, how are you going to manage that? And they have no answer to what they’re going to do.”
Albert Strauss, CEO of Strauss Family Creamery in Petaluma, is partnering with dairy farmers who are fighting the plan.
“It’s the last straw for the future of ranches in the Point Reyes National Seashore,” said Strauss, who buys from Drakes View Dairy on the Historic A Ranch and Mendoza Dairy on the Historic B Ranch, both in Point Reyes.
The fence removal plan stems from numerous lawsuits filed, starting in 2016, by conservation and environment groups including, the Resource Renewal Institute, Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project and Animal Legal Defense Fund.
The litigation challenged the National Park Service’s renewal of leases with ranchers and the legality of an elk reserve fence separating cows from elk, citing violations of the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the Wilderness Act.
Point Reyes National Seashore wildlife ecologist Dave Press predicted that some elk will eagerly wander across the boundary once the fence is removed. But based on radio collar studies over the years, he predicts many more may stay on their historic home ranges within the reserve.
“I don’t know if they would really start filtering throughout the whole park,” Press said. “That’s just the big unknown.”
When 10 tule elk arrived in Point Reyes in 1978, it was part of a statewide effort to revive a decimated species. It succeeded in growing elk herds in the region. But during drought years of 2013 to 2015, more than 200 elk died. In the 2020-22 drought, around half of elk died in Tomales Point, the northwest tip of Point Reyes.
Park officials brought in supplemental water sources for the first time. Point Reyes National Seashore spokeswoman Melanie Gunn said a new management plan proposal was also developed to address climate challenges. “It was something that was not accounted for in the last management plan in 1998,” Gunn said.
The new management plan included the fence removal. But other National Seashore proposals would maintain the previous management plan or implement an alternative plan that maintains fencing separating elk from farms, with allowances for thinning elk herds if overpopulation occurs.
Kehoe supports the alternative to keep fencing. Meanwhile, he says elk are already coming through holes in fencing, leaping over cattle guards and lingering for two to three months at a time near a spring-fed trough on the farm. Come spring, they’ll have calves, and the herd will grow, he said.
“This is their home,” Kehoe said. “They’re not going to go back. If anything, they’ll migrate toward the other ranches.”
Strauss said he knows of another Point Reyes ranch that has “140 elk that they’re dealing with every day,” including “50 bull elk that are pushing the cows out of the alfalfa and the feed.”
He said the elk are also devouring pasture for livestock. That can impact organic dairies, which must provide rations from pasture for at least 120 days a year.
“When the elk are eating that, it puts the farm at risk,” Strauss said.
Taught to be conservation-minded by his father and grandfather, who started the farm in 1922, Kehoe said he has long been supportive of the tule elk. He said he just thinks the herd requires management.
The Kehoe family’s original 30-year farm use and occupancy agreement with the government was extended under subsequent five-year and two-year leases. In ongoing negotiations, ranchers are asking for extended 20-year leases to justify long-term investments in farm infrastructure.
Kehoe said his daughter and his brother Michael’s son want to be the next generation to work the Kehoe Dairy, but they will take that leap only with a long-term lease. For now, he said, they’re waiting until still-pending litigation and mediation can be resolved.
“I think when the reality really hits,” he said, “then we’ll have to start thinking about it.”
(John Beck is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in Benicia. He may be contacted at john@beckmediaproductions.com.)
