Donald Trump’s administration is quietly pushing national park, refuge and wilderness area managers to dramatically scale back hunting restrictions, raising questions about visitor safety and the impact on wildlife.

Doug Burgum, the US Department of the Interior secretary, issued an order in January directing multiple agencies to remove what he termed “unnecessary regulatory or administrative barriers” to hunting and fishing, to and justify regulations they want to keep in place.

“Expanding opportunities for the public to hunt and fish on Department-managed lands not only strengthens conservation outcomes, but also supports rural economies, public health, and access to America’s outdoor spaces,” Burgum wrote.

“The Department’s policy is clear: public and federally managed lands should be open to hunting and fishing unless a specific, documented, and legally supported exception applies.”

The order applies to 55 sites in the lower 48 states under the National Park Service’s jurisdiction, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. Managers at various locations have already lifted prohibitions on hunting stands that damage trees and on training hunting dogs, using vehicles to retrieve animals and hunting along trails, according to an NPCA review of site regulations the organization recently performed after learning of the order. The New York Times was the first to report on the changes.

The hunting season in the Cape Cod national seashore in Massachusetts, for example, would be extended through the spring and summer. Hunters in the Lake Meredith national recreation area in Texas would be allowed to clean their kills in bathrooms. And hunters would be allowed to kill alligators in the Jean Lafitte national historical park and preserve in Louisiana.

Burgum’s order comes as hunting continues to decline in the face of increasing urbanization. Only about 4.2% of the US population identified as a hunter older than age 16 in 2024, according to US Fish and Wildlife Service and US census data, leaving state wildlife agencies short on revenue from license sales and excise taxes on guns and ammunition.

Hunting advocates and conservative policymakers have been exploring multiple avenues to keep hunting alive, including promoting the sport to women and young children, creating seasons for more species and expanding hunter access to public land.

Hunting is currently allowed across about 51m National Park Service acres spanning 76 sites, although only about 8m of those acres lie in the contiguous United States with the rest in Alaska, according to the NPS website. Fishing is allowed at 213 sites. NPS sites typically adopt state hunting and fishing regulations, although they can impose restrictions that go beyond them to protect public safety and wildlife resources, like prohibiting shooting along a trail or near buildings.

Dan Wenk, a former Yellowstone national park superintendent and NPS deputy operations director, said park managers established their regulations by talking with stakeholders, and, as a result, most of the restrictions have been widely accepted. He said it made no sense for the Trump administration to upend that structure without substantial public discussion.

“Process never seems to stand in the way of many things with this administration,” Wenk said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press. “This was never a big issue. I’d love to know the problem we’re trying to solve. Then I could understand the costs that it’s going to take to solve it in terms of resources and visitor safety.”

An interior department spokesperson, Elizabeth Peace, said in an email that the order was a “commonsense approach to public land management” and promised that any closures or limits needed for public safety, resource protection or legal compliance would remain in place.

“For decades, sportsmen and women have been some of the strongest stewards of our public lands,” she said, “and this order ensures their access is not unnecessarily restricted by outdated or overly broad limitations that are not required by law.”

Asked in a follow-up email about the extent of any public outreach efforts, if any, Peace said only that the department had given the AP its statement on the order.

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which works to preserve access for hunting and fishing, posted a statement online in January calling the order a balance between wildlife management and outdoor traditions hunters and anglers support. Ducks Unlimited posted a statement in March saying Burgum’s order recognizes duck hunters’ “vital role”.

“This process will streamline federal regulations, make them more consistent with existing state rules, and provide more public-land access for outdoor recreation. Thank you, Secretary Burgum, for prioritizing America’s hunters and anglers,” the statement said.

Elaine Leslie, former head of the NPS’s biological resources department, said Trump was undermining a process that was put in place in good faith and that the order does not reflect science-based management.

“I don’t want to take my young grandchildren to a park unit only to have a hunter drag a gutted elk they shot across a visitor center parking lot. Nor enter a restroom where hunters are cleaning their game,” Leslie said in a text to the AP. “There is a time and place for hunting, trapping and fishing ... but that doesn’t mean every place has to be open to every activity especially at the expense of others and degrading our public resources.”