Fish and Wildlife Service September 10, 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), open seven National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) that are currently closed to hunting and sport fishing. In addition, we expand hunting and sport fishing at 70 other NWRs, and add pertinent station-specific regulations for other NWRs that pertain to migratory game bird hunting, upland game hunting, big game hunting, and sport fishing for the 2019-2020 season. We also formally open 15 units of the National Fish Hatchery System to hunting and sport fishing. We also add pertinent station-specific regulations that pertain to migratory game bird hunting, upland game hunting, big game hunting, and sport fishing at these 15 National Fish Hatcheries (NFHs) for the 2019-2020 season. This rule includes global administrative updates to every NWR entry in our refuge-specific regulations and the reorganization of general public use regulations. We remove approximately 2,100 regulations that will have no impact on the administration of hunting and sport fishing within the National Wildlife Refuge System. We also simplify over 2,900 refuge-specific regulations to comply with a Presidential mandate to adhere to plain language standards and to reduce the regulatory burden on the public. Lastly, we remove the provision concerning same-day airborne hunting of the regulations specific to Alaska NWRs.