WPA (Waterfowl Production Area) Geocaching Policy?

[sipafz]

Does anyone know if there is one and if so, what it is? I have tried to find out on my own by contacting Steve Lenz of the US Fish and Wildlife Service / Leopold Wetland Management District, but have not receive a response as of yet.

sipafz – Jack

[CodeJunkie]

@sipafz wrote:

Does anyone know if there is one and if so, what it is? I have tried to find out on my own by contacting Steve Lenz of the US Fish and Wildlife Service / Leopold Wetland Management District, but have not receive a response as of yet.

sipafz – Jack

I just checked into this and I believe it’s Federal Property from what I can tell which would make it “out of play”.

[sipafz]

You might be right, but the following web sight: http://www.fws.gov/letsgooutside/ discusses geocaching and has an event planned on Federal managed land:

Try Geocaching

Saturday, March 27 − Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, Illinois

What’s geocaching, you ask? Come find out and cure your cabin fever with an outdoor adventure and treasure hunt, starting from the Ingersoll Wetlands Learning Center. All ages and skill levels welcome. Bring your own GPS unit or borrow one from the refuge. Both morning and afternoon sessions are available with a reservation. Learn more about geocaching at http://www.geocaching.com/ and type in the GC Code: GC22FNG.

So maybe these area’s are open?

Jack

[Hotdogs_Off_Trail]

Just being “Federal Property” doesn’t mean that it is off limits. We have two caches located on US Corps of Engineers Property. Keep checking.

[Team Deejay]

The wildlife refuges (Horicon, Trempealeau, and the Upper Mississippi) are all off limits currently, due to federal policy where these area are designated such that the only public use allowed must be “wildlife centered”. That means that you can kill the animals if you want, but you can’t walk through without “wildlife watching”. They routinely refuse permission for earthcaches, except for those placed by the rangers (much like this event).

The fisheries and other USFWS properties do not have a formal policy as far as I can tell. In those cases, you should talk to the property manager.

[Spike007]

We have alot of beautiful WPA land in Western WI and have had a number of caches on that type of property till about a year ago. It appears someone on the federal side of things put the kibosh to them so we had to remove all of the caches. Here’s the info I posted in April 2009 on that topic:

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I was talking with Da Bloodhound a few weeks, back, and he got wind of the possibility that we may need to remove caches from WPA lands here in Western WI. Chukkar does alot of volunteer work for this organization and knows many of the folks (DB does too). He talked with the local land manager about geocaches placed on WPA property, and it seems that since this land is officially managed by the US Fish and Wildlife department, they have authority over activities on the WPA property. (In addition to hunting, they encourage hiking, wildlife observation, etc.) While using any of their properties, nothing may be left behind that was not originally there, which is one of the primary reasons geocaching is not allowed. (It seems this mostly pertains to folks building permanent tree stands or duck blinds.)

Chukkar’s discussion with the local manager went pretty well, and he is very sympathetic and agrees that while we are probably doing more good for the promotion of their proprties than harm, he does not have the authority to override the national rule. It’s really unfortunate, since these areas are just beautiful, have abundant wildlife, and are mostly unused parcels of land. So, we’ll be removing caches on these lands in the coming days and weeks, but perhaps down the road we’ll get a variance to allow caches here – stay tuned. (Perhaps a similar notification form like the WGA has for DNR-managed lands could be implemented.)

I’ll still go out and hike these WPA areas, but hopefully we’ll have a chance to share them with others at some point again.

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Hopefully at some point we’ll be able to resume placement of caches on the WPA-designated lands. One WPA property I had caches on was an 800-acre parcel with several ponds and lots of big woods/prairie – just gorgeous! We’ll see how things go.

[CodeJunkie]

@Team Deejay wrote:

The wildlife refuges (Horicon, Trempealeau, and the Upper Mississippi) are all off limits currently, due to federal policy where these area are designated such that the only public use allowed must be “wildlife centered”. That means that you can kill the animals if you want, but you can’t walk through without “wildlife watching”. They routinely refuse permission for earthcaches, except for those placed by the rangers (much like this event).

The fisheries and other USFWS properties do not have a formal policy as far as I can tell. In those cases, you should talk to the property manager.

I just got an email back from the USFWS and they quoted the following geocaching.com page http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx where it states

Caches may be quickly archived if we see the following (which is not exhaustive):

Caches on land managed by an agency that prohibits geocaches, such as the U.S. National Park Service or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (National Wildlife Refuges).

The interpretation I’m getting from them is that all USFWS properties fall into this classification. But they also stated “… this sounds like a great adventure for all ages.”

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