Campers, cyclists, hikers, birding enthusiasts and other outdoor recreationalists would be required to buy an annual pass to access game lands in the state under a proposal floated by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
The “conservation access pass” proposal targets those users because they are increasingly visiting game lands and utilizing state Wildlife Resources boating-access areas, commission officials say.
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“The more people you put out there, the more activities they’re doing,” said Wildlife Resources Commission Land and Water Access Division Chief Daron Barnes. “You see a general degradation of those habitats’ infrastructure and it can impede management activities. So, there is a need for additional funding to address these types of impacts on land.”
Barnes explained to an online audience during a public meeting Tuesday night that hunters, anglers and trappers would not have to buy a pass because they are already “paying in” to access and use game lands, while outdoor recreationalists are increasingly using game lands free of charge.
“We see that number of people increasing year after year,” he said.
The prospective pass program was met with mixed feedback during the meeting, where participants raised concerns about a pass fee potentially affecting outdoor programs, particularly in low-income communities, and safety issues during hunting seasons.
If implemented, conservation access passes would apply at a minimum to commission-owned game lands, which include roughly a quarter, or more than 542,000 acres, of the 2.1 million acres of game lands the agency manages.
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In an email responding to questions following the meeting, Carrie Ruhlman, policy manager with the commission’s Office of Conservation Policy & Analysis, said the passes “may also apply on game lands owned by partner agencies/entities.”
“Once a decision is made on whether to move forward with a Pass, the WRC will reach out to those partners to see if they would like the Pass to apply to their property,” she said.
Roughly half, or 1.26 million acres, of game lands Wildlife Resources manages are owned by the U.S. Forest Service. A mix of other state agencies, local governments, private businesses and residents owns a little more than 299,200 acres.
Wildlife Resources owns 70 game lands, 37 of which span a total of more than 320,000 acres across the state’s coastal region.
Under the proposal, conservation access passes would be required for use at all of the more than 250 boating access areas that are built and maintained by the state for vessels that do not currently have to be registered with the agency. Those include nonmotorized water vessels like kayaks, canoes and stand-up paddleboards.
Passes would also be required to use five Wildlife Resources shooting ranges.
Franklin County resident William Teague said he doesn’t have a problem with nonhunters, anglers and trappers using the agency’s shooting ranges or with paddlers utilizing boat access areas.
But the state’s growing population and the demands of development that come with it are crowding out lands on which hunters and trappers can go, he said Tuesday.
Private land “is becoming harder and harder to be able to hunt,” Teague said. “And so it’s kind of forcing some of us to hunt exclusively on public land. There’s fewer and fewer opportunities to hunt and trap, for that matter. There’s plenty of other places across the state that if you’re not a hunter, trapper or angler that you can go and do recreational-type things.”
He was joined by others who spoke during the meeting in raising concerns about recreationalists using game lands during hunting seasons.
Jerry Price suggested certain areas within game lands be restricted for hunting and trapping use only during hunting seasons. Those areas could be rotated between that group of users and recreational uses, he said.
“To hunters, there’s very few places that have good quantities of game, mainly big game deer hunting,” Price said.
Haw River Keeper Emily Sutton said she understands the agency’s need to draw additional revenue to maintain game lands resources.
“But I think charging a fee for the general public to access these public lands, especially in a watershed like mine where there’s increasingly less big tracts of open space for people to explore, like the Jordan Lake Game Lands, is not the way to go about this,” she said. “It will discourage people from coming into those game lands and exploring these big tracts of forests that we don’t have a lot of access to in this part of the state anymore.”
Sutton said tacking fees to nonmotorized water vessels could be a huge hit for outfitters, schools and universities, and organizations like hers that offer free paddle events and clinics.
Anna Wheeler with the Dan River Basin Association agreed.
“We do free paddles for Saturday outings once a month,” she said. “This could really be a situation that gets a little bit expensive and discourages people from getting outdoors.”
The prospective pass fee would impact outdoor programs offered at colleges and universities through the state, according to Nathan Rector, director of Duke University’s Outdoor Adventures.
“My program certainly uses some of these boat ramps and we take multiple groups there and if we had to transfer that cost to our participants, a lot of our participants would just not be able to afford it, and we would really not exist,” he said. “We don’t make money off these things. We’re just offering a resource and so I’m hoping that either this would be reconsidered or some sort of educational nonprofit alternative would be offered to universities across the state.”
The agency is considering a $30 pass fee, but commission officials say they have not settled on a price to present to the voting members, who will consider whether to implement the conservation access pass program.
Anyone 16 and older would be required to obtain the pass, which would be good for one year from the date of purchase.
Wildlife Resources is accepting online feedback on the pass proposal through March 28. All comments are to be complied and presented to the commission.
Additional information about the conservation access pass proposal is available at ncwildlife.org/conservation-access-pass.
If the plan is approved, passes would be effective no earlier than 2026.
