Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Monday proposed a new rule allowing or expanding hunting on 30 national wildlife refuges.
The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service also is aiming to increase sport fishing at four national wildlife refuges.
Together, the Trump administration is proposing to open or expand an additional 248,000 acres to hunting and sport fishing, which it says will yield about $711,000 in recreation-related spending.
Under federal law, national wildlife refuges in all states are protected from recreational use to protect and conserve threatened fish and wildlife.
But the Interior secretary can open refuges to hunting or sports fishing if he determines the use is compatible with protecting wildlife there.
The wildlife refuges span the country, including ones in Utah, Maryland, Ohio, Montana, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Illinois, North Dakota, and more.
The Trump administration has promoted expanding economic activities in wildlife refuges, most prominently signing into law a provision of the GOP tax reform law allowing oil and natural gas drilling in the long-untouched Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Democrats have panned those efforts, saying they threaten wildlife with little economic benefit.
The Trump administration also has encouraged big game hunting, overturning an Obama administration ban this year by permitting hunters to import elephant trophies on a case-by-case basis.
