While I didn’t grow up in a family that hunts, I’ve known some passionate hunters over the years.
You know, the kinds of people that come to work in the morning still wearing their camouflage overalls because they came straight in to work from the deer stand (that would have been the warehouse manager that I knew, not the bookkeeper), the kinds of people that plan their vacations around when deer season or turkey season or quail season or bow hunting season or black powder season starts.
You get the idea.
People serious about hunting.
Of course, one of the big difficulties with hunting is that some specialty hunting trips can cost a pretty penny.
Some spectacular hunting opportunities may become more readily available to hunters across the country, though. Todd Richmond with the Associated Press writes,
President 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.
U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order in January directing multiple agencies to remove what he termed “unnecessary regulatory or administrative barriers” to hunting and fishing and justify regulations they want to keep in place.
Richmond continues:
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 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.
Frankly, I can’t help but think that this change is precisely what the doctor ordered for hunters in the U.S. who want to hunt in areas that they haven’t been able to before.
All said, it’s a real opportunity for many hunters, and you may want to take advantage of this now before this change becomes better known and the hunting areas get crowded.