After relocation from Tomales Point to the Limantour area, several elk were observed to have traveled across Drakes Estero where they established a sub-herd near Drakes Beach. Johne's disease, or paratuberculosis, is a chronic diarrheal disease of domestic livestock and can affect wild ruminants. Of the forty-five elk transported to a holding pen for quarantine near Limantour Beach, twenty-eight animals were cleared for release following screening for Johne's disease. The 2022 annual census of tule elk identified a minimum population size of 262 individuals at Tomales Point, a 18.5% increase from 221 elk in 2021. The 1998 Tule Elk Management Plan and Environmental Assessment (EA) (10,680 KB PDF) guides the management of elk at Tomales Point, and notes that the population of elk at this location may go through a series of modulated swings of population growth and decline, a process called natural- or self-regulation. The tule elk at Tomales Point had access to water throughout the 2012–2015 drought years. The low census count of 283 individuals in 2015 was likely a result of overpopulation and poor forage conditions during the dry summer and fall months. Since 2020, the elk population at Tomales Point has fluctuated up and down with changing environmental conditions, with a low census count of 283 individuals in 2015 to a high count of 585 individuals in 2007, and an average of approximately 420 individuals over the last 20 years from 1999 to 2019. At that time, park staff attempted to prevent over-population and damage to the range through various means, including an experimental four-year effort to slow growth through the use of contraceptives. In the early 1990s, biologists theorized that tule elk might become too numerous within the Tule Elk Reserve. Reintroduction of tule elk to the National Seashore and the further establishment of the free-ranging herd has been an important component of the restoration of the natural systems historically found in this unique and treasured place.įollowing an initial period of slow growth, the tule elk herd at Tomales Point grew exponentially over several years. In 1998, twenty-eight animals taken from the Tomales Point preserve were released in the wilderness area south of Limantour Beach. In 2019, the National Park Service increased the size of the reserve to 2,900 acres.įurther conservation efforts resulted in an additional free-ranging herd being established at Point Reyes. The site of this release was a decommissioned cattle ranching area, known as Pierce Point Ranch, which is now designated as wilderness. As a result, ten animals (eight females and two males) were transplanted from an existing reintroduced herd in the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge near Los Baños to a 2,600-acre fenced enclosure on Tomales Point in 1978. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, to reintroduce the extirpated tule elk to Tomales Point. State and Federal legislation in the early 1970s, authorized the California Department of Fish and Game, in cooperation with U.S. They were the dominant grazers on these lands until their local extirpation in the 1850s. Tule elk once inhabited the grasslands of the Point Reyes peninsula and the Olema Valley, as well as other grasslands within Marin County. canadensis nelsoni), also found in California, are a non-native transplant and are found in the northeast corner of California. canadensis roosevelti), our other native California elk, are found on forested slopes in the Pacific Northwest and in several other western states. Tule elk are endemic to California, meaning they are found only here. All of the estimated 5,700 tule elk present in twenty-two herds across California (as of 2020) were derived from this small remnant herd, thanks to his initial efforts. Until this discovery, tule elk were thought to be extinct. A conservation minded cattle rancher named Henry Miller had the foresight to preserve this last isolated group discovered on his ranch in 1874. By some accounts, fewer than thirty remained in a single herd near Bakersfield in the mid-1870s. Its numbers were severely reduced in the mid-1800s, primarily due to uncontrolled market hunting and displacement by cattle. The tule elk ( Cervus canadensis nannodes) is one of two subspecies of elk native to California.
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