A joyous walk in the park this Sunday, May 4th, 2025 — with tule elk. Point Reyes National Seashore park, that is.
Almost two dozen young elk were in this spot (video above), just shy of 3 miles out on the Tomales Point trail, inside the now partially dismantled Tule Elk Reserve in northernmost Point Reyes.
In dozens of visits over many years, I have never been this close to so many of the elk. Nor have I been this close to elk who were this relaxed near so many of us humans. (About 6 of us hominids were coming & going, taking pics & vids, and enjoying their presence and beauty immensely.)
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Perhaps they could feel the (our) love. These elk people are incredibly sensitive and attuned to their surrounds, including us human doofuses.
Or perhaps the elk are all more relaxed because there is currently plenty of food (forage) and water, and also more freedom than ever before, what with cow ranchers already leaving the park with their cows and their pay-off loot.
I asked the young elk above why he was so chill, but he played coy, wouldn’t say a word. Even when I told him how handsome he was, how healthy he looked, and how luxurious his brand new, first-ever fur coat was.
My advice to my fellow animal-loving humans: take your friends & family out to Point Reyes, to visit these beauties. Any day is good (unless a heavy fog is in). Point Reyes and these ungulates) are always fun & free to visit. And their home is blessedly quiet; far from city crowds and traffic.
Meaning, the whole scene is a balm for the soul of today’s typically overstimulated, stressed-out 2-legged. These tule elk are always here, there and around to calm us down and open up our hearts.
All this is just one of many reasons that so many of us activists are still working on their behalf, and on behalf of all the thousands of other wild animals who live on the Point Reyes peninsula. We are set on completing the big job, begun in the early 1960s, of completely re-wilding Point Reyes.
To be clear, this absolutely requires removing all commercial operations, especially the persistent bovine businesses that have been responsible for killing hundreds of elk and degrading beyond all recognition this Bay Area backyard national park.
I’ll see you out there!