Groups supporting dog walking at Golden Gate National Recreation Area have sent a petition with more than 30,000 names on it to Interior Secretary Zinke asking him to preserve that use of the NRA/Care2

Groups concerned that the National Park Service is working to prohibit dog walking at Golden Gate National Recreation Area have sent a petition with more than 30,000 names on it to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke asking that he preserve that use of the park.

Golden Gate officials in recent years have been working to revise their regulations pertaining to dogs on the NRA. The process has been controversial, with dog walking groups concerned that park staff had a predetermined decision to block access for them.

On Tuesday dog and recreation groups in the Bay Area announced that more than 30,000 people have signed the petition to the Interior secretary in just two weeks.

"People from all over the world have added their names," the groups said, "and many have written personal comments about the importance of keeping access for dog walking where it’s currently allowed on just 1% of GGNRA land."

The Care2 petition to Secretary Zinke says: "We think you’d agree that dog walking is a perfectly appropriate activity for an urban recreation area like the GGNRA, located within one of the most densely packed urban areas in the nation."

“We know that Secretary Zinke is making the Department of the Interior building in Washington, D.C., dog friendly, so we wonder if he knows his underlings at the National Park Service are doing the exact opposite by cutting recreational dog walking in the most popular recreation area it manages,” said Andrea Buffa of Save Our Recreation, a coalition of groups suing the National Park Service. “The R in GGNRA stands for recreation, not remote wilderness, so why is the Park Service trying to manage the GGNRA like it’s out in the hinterland?”

Back in January the staff at Golden Gate suspended the signing of the Record of Decision and the publication of the Final Rule for Dog Management at Golden Gate National Recreation Area. At the time they said the hold was the result of members of Congress asking for a waiting period on approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement and because a former employee had used personal email for official communications related to the Dog Management Plan planning process.

The agency said it would conduct an independent inquiry into whether personal email was used in a manner that is at odds with applicable laws and policies, and if so, whether its use affected the planning and rulemaking processes. 

U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat representing San Francisco, at the time announced that she had asked the Inspector General's Office to look into the use of a personal email account during the planning process.

According to Save Our Recreation, some of the emails "show Park Service staff secretly helping anti-dog walking groups lobby elected officials in support of the Park Service position, as well as NPS staff destroying administrative record files, demonstrating bias against dog walking supporters, and purposely omitting scientific data from the dog management plan, actions that irreparably corrupted the administrative process used to develop the dog rule."

“We are discouraged that the Park Service appears to be unwilling to acknowledge the full extent of these problems by repeatedly trying to isolate the problems to only one employee despite having hundreds of pages of FOIA-related documents that show multiple staff, including two superintendents, were complicit in a wide range of improper and unlawful conduct," wrote Chris Carr, a partner who leads Morrison & Foerster’s Environmental and Energy Practice Group.

Morrison & Foerster represents Save our Recreation, Coastside DOG San Mateo County, Marin County DOG and SFDOG, which have asked for a truly independent investigation by the OIG. The groups are also asking for the dog rule to be withdrawn.

"Care2 members have been protesting this proposal loudly for over a year," said Julie Mastrine, Care2's manager of brand marketing and public relations. "As a San Francisco resident, I know firsthand that dogs are supremely important to many Bay Area residents. Restricting their beloved pets' access to the GGNRA will bode negatively for their health and create significant obstacles for San Francisco dog walkers, driving up the cost of dog walking and care."