The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday afternoon reopened waterfowl production areas to the public, 11 days after they – and other public lands, ranging from national parks to national wildlife refuges – were closed because of the federal budget impasse.

National wildlife refuges administered by FWS, such as the Bison Range and the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge, remain closed.

The decision came on the eve of opening day of pheasant season in several states, including Montana – and after earlier warnings to hunters that the areas were closed to all public access because of the partial government shutdown.

Federal wildlife officer Mike Koole, who had posted “closed” signs at entrances to the nine separate WPAs in the Ninepipe area to help hunters know where they weren’t supposed to be, was assisting at the Lee Metcalf Metcalf Refuge in the Bitterroot Valley on Friday afternoon when the decision was made in Washington.

Koole, who is furloughed from his job and working without pay, said it was his intention to return to the Flathead Indian Reservation, where he works out of the National Bison Range, and have all the “closed” signs down in the Ninepipe area before pheasant season starts Saturday.

“If I have to stay until midnight, I’ll make every effort to take them down,” he said. “Depending on how dark it gets, I might miss one or two.”

Koole said he would also try to post some copies of the news release announcing the decision to reopen the public lands. The Ninepipe area, a patchwork of federal, state, tribal and private lands, includes 3,268 acres designated as FWS waterfowl production areas.

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In Friday’s news release, FWS spokesman Bruce Decker said that “despite limited staffing, the Service has undertaken an assessment to determine what, if any, potential exists to open lands to public use with our obligations under the government-wide shutdown. It has been determined that allowing public access to Waterfowl Production Areas will not incur further government expenditure or obligation, and is allowable under a government shutdown.”

Koole received the advisory at 2:22 p.m. Friday, saying that “effective immediately, all WPAs will reopen to public use.”

Decker acknowledged that the closures had come “at an extremely difficult time with hunting seasons just underway, fall migratory bird migrations at their peak, and hundreds of communities forced to cancel events as part of National Wildlife Refuge Week.”

Initially, he went on, “with the approximately 78 percent of its employees furloughed, we determined it would be difficult for the remaining, non-furloughed workforce to ensure the safety of facilities, lands and resources, in a manner that incurs no further financial obligation to the U.S. government.”

Decker said the closures could be reinstated if the stalemate in Washington continues, and the service determines that keeping the waterfowl production areas open is costing money that Congress has not authorized it to spend.

Doing so would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, Decker said.

The decision to reopen waterfowl production areas was likely to please Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, national organizations that early in the week “demanded” Congress and the service reopen WPAs, wildlife refuges “and other publicly purchased lands for recreational use by hunters and the general public.”

“Waterfowl production areas are the most used publicly owned resources by waterfowl and upland hunters,” Dave Nomsen, Pheasants Forever vice president of governmental affairs, had said Monday. “Now, after years of supporting these lands through their purchase of federal duck stamps, hunters are locked out during the brief season they are allowed to pursue their hunting passion.”

Photo copyright Jim Robertson