A January directive from the Trump administration that would permit hunting on some previously restricted federal lands didn’t draw much attention. Not until early May did reporting catch up with the announcement.
Restrictions are to be removed at dozens of national parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas, The New York Times reported. Opinions ensued.
THE GREAT OUTDOORS: More on Ohio hunting and fishing
No Ohio site is included.
Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge in northwest Ohio already allows hunting for deer, waterfowl and other game. Cuyahoga Valley National Park doesn’t hold sufficient people-free areas to allow safe hunting.
The order by Doug Burgum, Trump’s Secretary of the Interior, directed agencies to remove “unnecessary regulatory or administrative barriers” to hunting and fishing. Site managers, he noted, would be required to justify the regulations they want to keep.
The public responses ranged from enthusiastic support to lukewarm opposition to genuine puzzlement about why such a move might be needed.
Backing the move were at least two conservation groups comprising hunters with clout: the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and Ducks Unlimited (DU).
“This process will streamline federal regulations, make them more consistent with existing state rules, and provide more public-land access for outdoor recreation,” said DU CEO Adam Putnam. “Thank you, Secretary Burgum, for prioritizing America’s hunters and anglers.”
Whether any of Putnam’s assertions is beyond debate can be questioned. Nonetheless, a person in his position is essentially obliged to say something positive about an order that creates marginal access where it didn’t previously exist.
As is often the case these days, the narrative gets perceived based to an extent on the way it’s presented. A web forum entitled HuntTalk drew a few markedly thoughtful observations (relayed below) about the report and the reporting:
• The headlines I’ve seen make it sound like we will have bubba in a box blind overlooking Old Faithful. But if you actually read the article, it’s not going to change much.
• As someone that sees the pie of accessible land get a little smaller each and every year, I will take an addition as positive.
• If we care about the future of hunting, the opinions of non-hunters, especially ignorant ones, matter greatly.
The thing about non-hunters is there are so many. It’s probably not the opposition – the anti-hunters – but the indifference of the multitudes, ignorant or not, that has hunting trending toward social insignificance.
The 2022 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s national survey of hunting and fishing, the most recent such survey, showed that about 6% of Americans age 16 and older hunted. New England registered the lowest participation at about 3% The five eastern north-central states, which include Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, had the highest at 19%.
Big game, which includes deer and elk, drew the highest participation nationwide. That’s true in Ohio, where the health of hunting is tied fundamentally to the availability of deer to kill.
Opening a bit of federal land to hunting isn’t going to change the participation trajectory much. Generations have passed since most Ohioans lived on farms and fed from what they could take off their land.
Few suburban dwellers know the taste of cottontail, squirrel, pheasant or even wild deer. Nor in a processed world do they need to know, which might be instructive to keep in mind.
Turkey update
Hunters checked 15,763 wild turkeys through May 24, the final day of the spring season in 83 of Ohio’s 88 counties. The season ends May 31 in five northeastern counties.
The take totaled 1,408 more bearded birds, an increase of 9.8%, than were taken at a comparable point of the season in 2025.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Trump to open federal lands to hunters, no Ohio site is included
Reporting by Dave Golowenski, Special to The Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
