Plan to Kill Tule Elk Sparks PETA Protest

For Immediate Release:
June 24, 2021

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

Because the National Park Service (NPS) is allowing cattle ranching interests to sentence tule elk on Point Reyes National Seashore to death, PETA supporters—including Miyoko Schinner, CEO of Sonoma County–based vegan cheese giant Miyoko’s Creamery—will greet motorists heading to the seashore on Sunday with signs proclaiming, “Save the Tule Elk!”

When:    Sunday, June 27, 12 noon sharp

Where:    At the intersection of Fourth and A streets, Point Reyes Station

“The National Park Service is kowtowing to cattle ranching interests at the expense of the wildlife who call Point Reyes home,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA invites anyone appalled by this plan to join us in calling on officials to protect tule elk, not watch them die.”

Tens of thousands of people have demanded that the Department of the Interior halt the NPS plan, which would allow cattle ranchers to keep over 5,500 cows on fenced-off portions of the seashore for 20 more years, even though animal agriculture wastes water and is one of the main causes of the climate crisis. Hundreds of elk at Point Reyes died in 2020 because an 8-foot-tall fence confines a herd to a peninsula, preventing them from reaching sustenance elsewhere. Only two other herds of tule elk remain at Point Reyes, and the NPS plan would allow for some of them to be killed as well.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.