The Ohio Department of Natural Resources proposed adding the option to refer to the Charles O. Trump Wildlife Area as the Trump Wildlife Preserve. The proposal has since garnered significant backlash on social media.
The Charles O. Trump Wildlife Area is a 128-acre plot of land located off of state Route 56 in Pickaway County. The wildlife area is named after Charles O. Trump, a farmer who donated his land to ODNR upon his death in 1996.
ODNR Press Secretary Karina Cheung shared in an email that the proposal is not a complete name change but would allow the department to shorten the name to Trump Wildlife Preserve, as an option of reference.
Cheung added that if the proposal is confirmed, the ODNR Division of Wildlife, which oversees all wildlife reserves in the state, will not change public signage.
Critics of the proposal claim the name change would add confusion over the area’s namesake. They contend that by cutting “Charles O.” from the name, it could imply the area is named after President Donald Trump.
“If the state believes person-named properties should be standardized, then it should develop a neutral rule and apply it consistently to all similarly named areas, not just this one," a Reddit user posted. "But selectively shortening Charles O. Trump to Trump invites a public interpretation that ODNR is aligning a wildlife area with present-day partisan identity and national political symbolism."
The comment sections on posts about the name change proposal on both Facebook and Reddit are filled with comments highlighting the implications of the name change in honoring Donald Trump.
“The man gave the land for the nature preserve and you want to shorten his name obviously to honor a different man?” a Facebook user wrote on a post under WSYX ABC 6’s about the name change proposal.
Pickaway County resident Sherri Fahringer feels there has been a lack of communication from ODNR about why the name change is being proposed.
“I think it is a waste of taxpayer time and money, and I would love to know the reason they are doing it,” Fahringer said.
ODNR told the Columbus Dispatch in 2020 that the wildlife area is named after Charles O. Trump, the person who donated the land, not Donald Trump.
Magdalena Collier, a senior studying geology, said she believes the name change is not a good idea.
“I think that insinuation is potentially disrespectful to not only the person that donated his land to be used as a reserve and a public park, but also for every person that works in public parks, for everything relating to the environment … changing it to something that can be associated with the president seems very disrespectful,” Collier said.
Collier said the implication the area is named after Donald Trump is controversial, as he has rolled back many environmental regulations while in office, such as expanding fossil fuel production in formerly protected areas and limiting protection for endangered wildlife.
On Dec. 11, Donald Trump signed five Congressional Review Act resolutions overturning former President Joe Biden’s plans on land preservation. Donald Trump’s executive orders opened up land in Montana, North Dakota, Alaska and Wyoming for coal, oil and gas development.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Donald Trump has also rolled back several environmental regulations, including ones on animal preservation.
In November, the U.S. Department of the Interior issued a statement, including four rule changes that would return wildlife regulation to 2019 and 2020 standards, repealing the changes made under the Biden Administration. The proposal rules include critical habitat designation, interagency cooperation, threatened species protection and critical habitat exclusions.
In recent months, there has been a push to name public land and buildings after Donald Trump. Examples include the introduction of Ohio House Bill 638, which calls to name a section of I-70 outside of Columbus the “President Donald Trump Freedom Highway,” and the inclusion of the Trump name at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
Unless otherwise stated, the proposed changes will go into place on June 30.
