Feds: Hunting Good for Wildlife Refuges

March 18, 2003 -- -- Is a wildlife refuge not a refuge if people are allowed to hunt there?

That's what an animal rights organization maintains. And to drive home its point, the Fund for Animals has filed suit against the federal government to bar hunters from areas in 39 refuges that have been opened to them in the last five years.

But, counters the Interior Department and hunters' groups, that stance misconstrues the basis for the refuge system since it was started by President Teddy Roosevelt 100 years ago this month.

"It's completely historically inaccurate and intellectually dishonest," Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Mitch Snow said of the Fund for Animals' lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Washington.

"The refuges were never created to be sanctuaries where no hunting would be allowed," Snow said. "Ever since the inception of the refuge system, hunting has been allowed, largely because hunting is good for conservation — hunters contribute enormously to conservation. Without hunting, we couldn't do what we do."

Federal law allows for "secondary uses" in wildlife refuges, as long as there is a review of the potential effect of that use on wildlife designated for protection. The National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 allows four possible secondary uses — hunting, fishing, wildlife viewing and environmental education.

The Fund for Animals' lawsuit specifically challenges the Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to "initiate or expand sport hunting" at 39 refuges, including 31 where there has never been hunting before and 21 that are within the Mississippi flyway, which the group says is "a critical migration corridor for numerous species of birds protected under the Endangered Species Act."

Hunters are not allowed to shoot the animals designated for protection in the refuges, but the Fund for Animals says that no matter what species is the hunters' prey, all the others that live in the refuge suffer negative effects.