https://www.washingtonpost.com...efuges-open-hunting/



Trump allows hunting in National Wildlife Refuges despite shutdown

The Trump administration directed staff to open wildlife refuges to hunters even as many national parks and other government services close.

October 19, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. EDTToday at 6:00 a.m. EDT
4 min

Summary


By Jake Spring and Hannah Natanson

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has instructed staff to allow hunting to go forward in many of the roughly 600 National Wildlife Refuges, three FWS employees said, despite the wider shutdown that has halted many other government services.

“All permitted hunts will continue,” according to an email sent to refuge staff and reviewed by The Washington Post.

President Donald Trump has directed select parts of the government to ignore the shutdown — with paychecks continuing to members of the military and diverting tariff proceeds to an anti-hunger program — while stopping other services, like taxpayer help lines at the IRS or Environmental Protection Agency permit approvals. Many national parks have also partially or fully closed.


The Fish and Wildlife Service has furloughed 4,655 of 7,001 employs, according to the Interior Department’s contingency plan for operating in a shutdown. The plan does not break down how many furloughed workers are employed by the National Wildlife Refuge System.



At refuges that have dedicated on-site staff, the plan says one employee will remain to carry out essential safety work and exempts all refuge law enforcement officers from furloughs. Not all refuges will be staffed, it says.

But administration officials have directed remaining refuge staff to continue working to support hunts, while refuge visitors centers remain closed, according to the FWS employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. One of the people said that unpaid FWS workers were asked to open gates for hunters, while another said “bare bones refuge staff, and law enforcement, are working unpaid” to support hunting.

This seemingly contradicts the administration’s contingency plan that only allows for permitted activities to continue if it “does not require the presence of a Federal employee or contractor.”

“The Department of the Interior is committed to keeping public lands as open and accessible as possible,” Interior spokesperson Elizabeth Peace said in a statement. “Specific staff members are available to ensure public safety and to provide permitting, access to hunt areas, and the protection of life and property.”



Interior confirmed that some workers are being paid for work related to safety, law enforcement and emergency response.

When refuges are not staffed properly, some people will continue to follow the rules but others might damage these refuges that are treasured by many Americans who use them for outdoor recreation, said Desirée Sorenson-Groves, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association, a nonpartisan advocacy group.



“People will go out and do illegal hunting. People will go out and trespass,” she said, adding that she witnessed someone drive around a barrier at one refuge she visited during the shutdown.

“For hunting, we don’t let people police themselves, right? We don’t say: ‘Here’s your online tag for your deer. We trust you to just go get one deer.’”

Peace said that staff were continuing to support hunting in a safe and orderly manner. “The safety of the hunting public remains paramount,” the Interior spokesperson said.

Activities that don’t require staff, such as fishing, wildlife observation and photography, can continue, but operations requiring staff, like visitors centers, are closed, Peace added. The directives apply to the entire refuge system, she said.

When the federal government shut down during the first Trump term, the administration also allowed hunting on refuges to go forward.

Sorenson-Groves said that other vital work is not happening amid the shutdown, including filling up man-made impoundments with water to serve as habitat for migrating birds at some wildlife refuges. FWS has also halted maintenance at the refuges, organized group nature walks or birdwatching, and environmental education work that often caters to visiting schoolchildren, she said.


“Why is it fair for there to be a hunt program, but then you can’t have an organized bird walk?” Sorenson-Groves asked.

Celebrations for National Wildlife Refuge Week, scheduled from Oct. 11-18, were also canceled across the country.

Sorenson-Groves called on Congress to end the shutdown and noted the dire state of staffing in the refuge system even before the shutdown began. Staff levels have declined 30 percent in the last 15 years, with the National Wildlife Refuge Association estimating that the Trump administration shrank the refuge workforce a further 20 percent since January.

Even before the shutdown, more than half of refuges have no staff on-site, according to the Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofit advocacy group.

“The refuge has just been decimated over the past several months,” Sorenson-Groves said. The damage may not be clear for a couple of years until impacts on wildlife populations are observed, she said.

“You have a job to do, Congress. You need to work together, and you need to figure out a way to fund the government so that all public lands are funded, the staff are funded and they are all open.”

quote:

“For hunting, we don’t let people police themselves, right? We don’t say: ‘Here’s your online tag for your deer. We trust you to just go get one deer.’”

In Wis. they do.

The premise of this is ludicrous
It directly implies we somehow need Federal Employees as “overseers and baby sitters”
Of course, they wouldn’t know that game wardens are State not Federal overlords that would be the primary regulators of behavior.