What we believe, what we recognize, and what the science suggests

Northeast Wilderness Trust welcomes the hunting of prey species, including deer, turkey, and game birds, subject to state seasons and regulations, on its preserves. We do not permit trapping, bear hunting, or the hunting of predators such as coyote, fox, fisher, and bobcat. A subset of our lands, which we call sanctuaries, are closed to hunting altogether and set aside so that wildlife there experience as little human pressure as possible. This letter explains the “why” behind our policy. Practical details about our policy appear at the end.

The Foundation: Ecocentrism

At Northeast Wilderness Trust, we believe that Nature deserves the freedom to flourish.

The foundation of our work and the reason this organization exists is just that: the conviction that untrammeled Nature has a place in our modern world. This is a value proposition, not a scientific statement. It is rooted in ethical considerations, not peer-reviewed research. While there are certainly co-benefits to protecting untrammeled Nature that are supported by robust scientific evidence, no single study can quantify the value of natural freedom itself. Northeast Wilderness Trust, more than anything, is built on a set of values and an underlying philosophy.

Our mission is rooted in an ecocentric worldview. The dominant worldview in and out of conservation asks: How does this land benefit humans? What ecosystem services does it provide? What resources can be extracted from it? What recreational opportunities does it offer? These are worthwhile and relevant questions, and they drive the primary goals of a majority of conservation work. We are fortunate that much of the Northeast has been conserved in pursuit of answering them.

Northeast Wilderness Trust exists to serve another goal—an important and underrepresented one. At the very core of our mission is the belief that Nature has intrinsic value, independent of any benefit it holds for people. That some land should be forever-wild—for its own sake. We pursue goal this not in competition with other forms of conservation, and not from a position of moral superiority, but in a complementary spirit.

Viewing conservation through this lens demands a few things of us: restraint, humility, and commitment.

Restraint, because human nature is often to act: We love tinkering in the woods, whether it be to provide access for recreation, habitat for certain desired species, or timber revenue; to protect water and other natural resources; or to accomplish a number of other objectives. It is difficult to step back and trust in something that can be hard to understand, but that’s what forever-wild conservation asks of us.

Humility, because we understand far less about the living world than we think. In our effort to elevate the rights of flora and fauna, who don’t have a voice at the table, we strive to recognize that we genuinely don’t know what they would say.

And finally, Commitment, because history has shown us that when people fail to make a commitment to wilderness, deliberately and permanently, wild Nature generally suffers for it.

Northeast Wilderness Trust’s work is rooted in an ecocentric worldview, where all species are recognized as having inherent value. When we think about land, we think less about ownership and management and more about relationship. We de-emphasize resources and recreation and instead focus on reciprocity. We strive to partner with Nature and foster an attitude of respect and familial love.

Northeast Wilderness Trust attempts to apply these ideas—restraint, humility, and commitment—to the world in which we operate. Our organization is rooted in ecocentrism, practically applied. Another way of saying this is that Northeast Wilderness Trust strives to operate as a pragmatic, not a dogmatic organization. How the organization approaches hunting is emblematic of this approach.

On Hunting: Science and Values

To understand Northeast Wilderness Trust’s hunting policy, it helps to first acknowledge that there is a large body of science on hunting and wildlife management that supports multiple positions. Like all bodies of science, it is constantly evolving.

There is another consideration, which is that many wildlife agencies cite social carrying capacity (or, the reduction of human-wildlife conflict) as a primary reason for allowing hunting of certain species, particularly carnivores. Here, too, the science is not settled, and a growing body of literature suggests that coexistence education, rather than hunting, is a more effective policy.

Northeast Wilderness Trust’s hunting policy is not exclusively science-based, and we don’t claim it to be. The Wilderness Trust’s position is likewise not anti-science. It is rather that science informs but does not determine our policy, because the question of what one ought to do is never purely a scientific question. It is instead a question of values.

Our hunting policy rests on three entwined pillars: what we believe, what we recognize, and what the science suggests today. Our policies are just that: ours. They are not intended to be sweeping value statements about any activity outside the bounds of Northeast Wilderness Trust’s protected land.

We believe…

…that there ought to be some places on the landscape where wild creatures experience less stress from human activity and enjoy greater privacy from human pressures. We believe in the inherent value of wild Nature and apply that philosophy to wildlife. Self-willed Nature is a net good, and wildlife is part of that whole. Hunting regulations are a form of management, and it is therefore our position to approach hunting with pragmatic restraint.

We concede that this sits in some tension with restraint itself: pure restraint would argue against intervening in wildlife populations at all, and yet we welcome hunting of some species on our land. We accept that tension for a specific reason. In the absence of native carnivores across most of the Northeast, hunting serves as an imperfect but valuable tool for regulating prey species populations. We say more on the “why” for this determination below.

We recognize…

…that hunting is an important cultural tradition across much of our service area, and that finding common ground is both essential and pragmatic. We recognize that hunting takes many forms with meaningfully different impacts on wildlife and wildness. And we recognize that prohibiting an activity on our land is not a moral judgment on that activity or on the people who pursue it, just as our position on wilderness makes no moral judgment on logging by choosing not to permit it on our land. Northeast Wilderness Trust is not anti-anything. What we strive to be is intentional and pro-wilderness.

The science suggests…

…that carnivore species self-regulate based on prey availability, through predator-prey dynamics and bottom-up regulation. Bear populations demonstrate a similar dynamic, with reproduction contracting during mast failures and expanding during mast years. These species do not require human harvest to remain in balance with their habitat.

Prey species are a different case. Deer, in particular, were historically kept in check from the top down by wolves and cougars, both largely absent from the Northeast for more than a century. Without that pressure, deer populations can grow beyond what the forest can sustain, and the consequences are well documented.

The distinction, then, is this: populations of predators and bears are mostly self-regulating, and hunting them would remove a portion of a relatively natural process. Prey species without predators, on the other hand, are generally not self-regulating, and hunting them restores a semblance of balance.

Our Policy

To put this all together: In the absence of native carnivores, and in reflection of the above, Northeast Wilderness Trust welcomes hunting of prey species (deer, turkey, game birds, etc.) on our preserves. This position reflects both the science and the cultural traditions of the Northeast.

Beyond hunting abundant prey, our policy reflects our values of promoting wild Nature, which leads us to prioritize intact social structures and natural mortality cycles within wildlife populations. We therefore generally prohibit trapping, predator hunting, and bear hunting. We also believe that there ought to be places where human pressure on wildlife is simply kept to a minimum. We call those places sanctuaries, and we prohibit both hunting and developed recreation on them, but they remain open to the public for passive access (bushwhacking). Sanctuaries are, essentially, places set aside for wild flora and fauna in the most distilled sense.

I share this short letter not to suggest that anyone need agree with our philosophy, but to be transparent about what animates our decisions. If you have questions about our approach, I welcome the conversation.

For the Wild,

Jonathan Leibowitz
President & CEO, Northeast Wilderness Trust
2026