Over the last two decades, the Park Service repeatedly announced its intentions to update its 35-year-old management plan for the Seashore but abandoned the planning process without explanation. Adopted in 1980, the general management plan fails to address current conditions such as climate change, increasing visitation and recreational use, and threats to wildlife. The lawsuit alleges that the agency is violating federal law by failing to revise or replace a badly outdated general management plan for the National Seashore. Nearly all reservations and leases have since expired. Ranching was not mandated by the legislation, but rather allowed under two narrow circumstances: time-limited reservations of rights for former landowners or general leases with conditions to protect the park. Our final brief is due at the beginning of November and hearing on the motion is scheduled in December.įebru– Advocates for the West teamed up with the San Francisco-based law firm Keker & Van Nest to file a lawsuit in federal court seeking to require the National Park Service to update its General Management Plan and prepare an Environmental Impact Statement prior to adopting a proposed ranching plan to issue long-term permits for cattle ranches in the Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County, California.Īfter Congress enacted legislation establishing the Point Reyes National Seashore in 1962, the federal government purchased private ranches and land in the park for millions of dollars. That motion asks the Court to stop the Park Service from issuing new long-term ranching leases and a Ranch Plan which presupposes that ranching will continue indefinitely at the Seashore, until the Court decides the merits of our case. In August 2016, we filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction supported by dozens of declarations and exhibits from our clients. In July 2016, the Court denied the National Park Service’s motion to dismiss our case. The Court agreed with our fundamental legal argument that NPS has a mandatory duty under the Park Service legislation to ensure the National Seashore is managed under an updated General Management Plan (GMP), and that our claims challenging current ranching authorizations for lack of environmental analyses did not constitute an impermissible programmatic attack on the agency’s ranching program. Under the agreement, the NPS will prepare a General Management Plan Amendment and an Environmental Impact Statement “that, at a minimum, addresses the lands currently leased for ranching in Point Reyes and in the north district of Golden Gate National Recreation Area.” some of the best viewing spots are Abbott’s Lagoon, Drakes Bay, Bolinas Lagoon, Limantour Estero, Point Reyes Lighthouse, Chimney Rock, Olema Marsh, Muddy Hollow, five Brooks Pond, or any of the access trails along the east shore of Tomales Bay.On July 12, 2017, Advocates for the West reached a settlement agreement with the National Park Service. Wonderful birding takes place during all the seasons. The last to leave are the weaned pups who depart by late March. Males arrive first in late November, shortly followed by the females who give birth within a week. At Point Reyes the whales are seen on their Southern migration in late December through January, and during their northern migration in March and April.Ī large colony of elephant seals can be seen at Chimney Rock. The gray whales pass by the Point Reyes Lighthouse on their migration from the Bering and Chuchki Seas near Alaska to the breeding lagoons in Baja, Mexico. Winter is considered by many to be a magic time at Point Reyes National Seashore. Spectacular wildflowers from March through May at Chimney Rock and Abbots Lagoon.
Guests enjoy whale watching from January to April, elephant seals from December to April, and tule elk at Tomales Point year round. You can hike l50 miles of trails, explore miles of sandy beaches, kayak on Tomales Bay, ride horses, or just relax by the wood stove or soak in the hot tub. Point Reyes Station is located an hour from San Francisco and the Napa-Sonoma wine country adjacent to the Point Reyes National Seashore with 65,000 acres of the most diverse settings that nature can provide.
Explore Point Reyes, West Marin, Tomales Bay and Point Reyes National Seashore
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