The Department of the Interior implemented a massive expansion of fishing and hunting access in the United States, opening 1,488 opportunities across 32 states. With the rule in effect as of Monday, more than 92 million acres, or 95% of National Wildlife Refuge System land, are now available for the practices. Expanded hunting and fishing are now allowed in areas where the practices were never before legal, including Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado and Stewart Lake National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota.
The rule also permits hunting and fishing for additional species and expands some seasons at locations where those activities were already allowed. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) oversees more than 570 national wildlife refuges that were “established to serve a statutory purpose that targets the conservation of native species dependent on its lands and water,” according to the agency’s website. Christopher Williams, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware, says the refuges were initially created to protect wildlife and then later helped to combat “extreme market hunting,” or unregulated hunting of animals.
They became safe habitats and breeding sanctuaries for endangered species under the 1966 Endangered Species Preservation Act. Now, hunting and other forms of recreation are permitted across a majority of those refuges when “compatible with each station’s purpose and mission under federal law,” per FWS. The very definition of a refuge seems to have “slowly morphed into an entity that was meant to provide an opportunity for hunting access,” Williams says.
The new rule raises a question of compatibility: How can the refuges fulfill their conservation mandate amid the nation’s largest-ever expansion of hunting and fishing? The FWS said this week’s expansion is about “maximizing access where compatible with conservation goals.” It also said that the new rule will help revitalize rural economies, as hunters and anglers contribute more than $144 billion annually to the U.S. economy. Sporting groups touted the “historic expansion” and its potential ability to help retain hunters and fishers at these refuges, which may rely on them for curbing overabundant and invasive species.
Williams says it makes sense that conservation groups support the expansion, since hunters and anglers play an “enormously important role in American wildlife conservation.” “And with long-term concerns about declining hunting participation, providing meaningful access remains an important part of recruitment, retention, and reactivation efforts,” he says. This was not the first time the Trump Administration proposed such an expansion. A version of the rule from 2020 opened some 859 opportunities across 2.3 million acres.
The increase in scope from his first term is about 73%. The new rule also makes more than 1,000 modifications to existing federal regulations that previously guided access to the refuges, including simplifications and deletions. The Trump Administration has said the sweeping revisions aim to make it easier to understand and enforce guidelines from state to state.
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