...with minimal increases in WA
Approximately 1.4 million acres of US Fish and Wildlife Service (National Wildlife Refuge) lands in the US will be open to new or expanded hunting/fishing opportunities later this year. For some refuges this simply means adding more acres to areas already open to hunting, and for others it means completely opening a refuge that was previously closed to hunting. However, in WA changes are minimal:
- Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge: Expand existing waterfowl hunting to 1,142 new acres.
- Entiat National Fish Hatchery: Formally open to sport fishing for the first time.
- Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery: Formally open to sport fishing for the first time.
- Little White Salmon National Fish Hatchery: Formally open to sport fishing for the first time.
- San Juan Islands National Wildlife Refuge: Open sport fishing for the first time on acres already open to other activities.
- Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery: Formally open to sport fishing for the first time
To answer the likely question about hatcheries, here you go:
US Fish and Wildlife land is closed to access and hunting/fishing until the agency actually publishes a rule opening it. In some areas this is well known, and in others this regulation is broken hundreds of times a day. For the fish hatchery property listed in WA people are likely fishing on those lands during the open season but are actually violating federal law since the USFWS actually never opened the lands to fishing.
A perfect example is seen in the picture below. The green shading is Little White Salmon National Fish Hatchery property on Drano Lake. All of the boats (and people on shore) who are fishing Drano Lake in the shaded area are actually violating federal law because they are fishing within the Little White Salmon National Fish Hatchery lands/boundary.
