There are concerns that the Trump administration will order the National Park Service to relax some of its hunting and fishing regulations/NPS file

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials, at the direction of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, are moving to open seven of their refuges to hunting and fishing, a move spurring concern that National Park System units could be ordered to move in the same direction.

It was just about a year ago that then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke directed the agencies under his purview to defer wildlife and fisheries matters to states. If the Fish and Wildlife Service, or the National Park Service, had more stringent regs than those of the states in which they were located, he said, they should relax their regulations.

In issuing that directive, Zinke said he was reaffirming a 1983 policy that gave states the authority “to exercise…