Drakes Bay Oyster Co. will have to leave Point Reyes.

"I am extremely disappointed that Secretary Salazar chose not to renew the operating permit for the Drakes Bay Oyster Company," Feinstein said. "The National Park Service's review process has been flawed from the beginning with false and misleading science, which was also used in the environmental impact statement."

The decision also ensures that, in keeping with the historic use of the land, existing sustainable ranching operations within the national park will continue, Salazar said.

He directed the National Park Service to pursue extending the terms of agriculture permits from 10 years to 20 years to provide greater certainty and clarity for the ranches operating within the national park's pastoral zone and to support the continued presence of sustainable ranching and dairy operations.

“This has been a very challenging issue, but I have great respect for the decision made by Secretary Salazar to allow this permit to expire at the end of its term. He studied the issue carefully, he listened closely to all sides and, in the end, he made his decision based on the science and the law.”

Times change....a lot of old industries are no longer viable. Most ranching on marginal land in the West is a losing proposition. The sheep ranchers in Patagonia are fast disappearing....forget the nostalgia, in a lot of these cases the environment is the winner.

what part of this being a "National Park" are you naysayers unclear about? These should be (but arent) non commercial public use areas. Keep your profiteering on private land.

what part of this being a "National Park" are you naysayers unclear about? These should be (but arent) non commercial public use areas. Keep your profiteering on private land. And yea I think the DNC should get evicted from Yosemite too, and the park run as a nonprofit.

Reading comprehension bluering....work on it...meh.

I f*#king hate do-gooders....

Jesus was a do gooder.. LOL

I live and grew up in West Marin and have eaten the oysters almost since the beginning. It's a tough choice....The bay is a beautifully intact model of what the small bays and lagoons of California were like before most all of them were permanently altered for the worse. You have to remember that major plans for development were to take place before the advent of the park. Everyone likes to bag on the park but it would have been a developed nightmare where no-one would want to be. Think Seadrift in Stinson Beach to get an idea (and where Diane Feinstien has a house)of what would have happened there. There were houses built on Limantour spit behind a locked gate (you can still see evidence of them) which was the start of what would have been a Seadrift like sub-division,that were torn down when the park was instituted. Drakes Estero is arguably the most pristine estuary on the coast. True, the oysters were good but I think in this case, it's for the best. If it weren't for the fact that there are oysters grown in Tomales Bay, it would have been harder to do. Go and kayak on the Estero sometime and decide for yourself.