The Trump administration has directed national recreation areas, seashores, wildlife refuges and other public lands to immediately lift dozens of restrictions on hunting and trapping, internal Interior Department documents show.

The order, which takes effect on Monday, applies to some 76 federal lands that allow hunting but have rules to protect habitats or people. Curecanti National Recreation Area in Colorado had prohibited firing weapons from, toward or across trails. At Lake Meredith National Recreation Area in Texas, hunters had been barred from cleaning and processing game animals in restrooms. And at the Ozark National Scenic Riverways in Missouri, hunting dogs were required to have tags for safety.

Those and many other requirements are now deleted.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered the changes, according to an April 21 memo to park officials and a spreadsheet of changes at individual parks, both of which were reviewed by The New York Times.

“Closures and restrictions not required by law must be the minimum necessary for public safety or resource protection,” the memo said.

Major national parks like Yellowstone, the Everglades and the Grand Canyon are permanently closed to hunting by statute and will not be affected by the order.

Critics said the changes were made without studies or wide consultation about how they might affect public lands. They warned of unintended consequences for animals and habitats. The Interior Department said in a statement that each change had been carefully reviewed and that any restrictions necessary for public safety or legal compliance would not be lifted.

Mr. Burgum has shown an eagerness to expand hunting and fishing on federal lands. Last year, the Interior Department allowed hunting across 87,000 new acres at national wildlife refuges and hatcheries. And in January, Mr. Burgum issued a secretarial order directing the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Reclamation to review “outdated” restrictions that may pose an “unnecessary regulatory burden.”

Aubrie Spady, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said in a statement that Mr. Burgum’s order was a common-sense approach to managing public lands and said the agency was expanding access to hunting and fishing where it can be done safely and responsibly.

“For decades, sportsmen and women have been some of the strongest stewards of our public lands, and this order ensures their access is not unnecessarily restricted by outdated or overly broad limitations that are not required by law,” Ms. Spady said. She added that the agency does not comment on leaked or unofficial documents, but said internal deliberative materials did not reflect how the decisions were made.

According to the spreadsheet of changes that the Trump administration has requested at specific locations, park officials have pushed back in some places.

For example, Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts said it could not allow hunting or carrying loaded weapons near trails and certain buildings because about 4 million people visit the park each year. And at New River Gorge National River in West Virginia, officials said they were not planning to change prohibitions on discharging firearms within 500 feet of visitors centers and campgrounds, calling it “a basic safety measure.”

But parks have already made dozens of other changes. Several have agreed to repeal restrictions on the use of artificial lights when hunting and allow permanent hunting stands. Conservation groups have argued that lights may affect wildlife and that stands can harm vegetation.

Other changes include an end to restrictions on transporting wildlife as well as rules restricting where animal carcasses can be left.

And in some cases, compendiums — the written compilation of closures, permit requirements and other restrictions at parks — have already been altered. For example, as of May 1, the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Louisiana eliminated a section that declared that all reptile species, including turtles and alligators, are protected in the park.

Compendiums have typically been designed at the discretionary authority of park superintendents.

“Those things were put into place by park superintendents over a period of time for very good reasons,” said Daniel Wenk, the former National Park Service superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, said of the changes, adding, “this is very concerning.”

Advocates for park protection who were shown the memo said they supported hunting in parks where Congress has authorized the activity. But some accused the Trump administration of acting irresponsibly and imposing a one-size-fits-all deregulatory agenda on parks with specific needs. Many said the administration was rushing through changes that could put hikers and campers in danger or harm vulnerable wildlife.

Several said the move appeared to violate the 1916 Organic Act, which created the National Park Service. It allows hunting where federally mandated but also directs the agency to conserve park resources so they are “unimpaired” for the enjoyment of future generations.

“What we’re really concerned about is, that memo didn’t say, ‘do analysis,’” said Stephanie Adams, who leads the wildlife program at the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit group.

“It didn’t say ‘engage the public,’ and it didn’t say to be sure to focus on that key part of the Organic Act, which is to manage in a way that leaves the parks unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generation,” Ms. Adams said.

Hunting and outdoor sporting groups have praised the Trump administration’s efforts so far.

Aaron Kindle, the director of sporting advocacy at the National Wildlife Federation, a conservation nonprofit that supports hunting, said wildlife refuges often have different regulations than the states, creating confusion for hunters.

Rob Sexton, the senior vice president of the Sportsmen Alliance, a hunting advocacy group, said national park sites have had a “closed until open” attitude toward hunting that needs to be reversed. He said restrictions that are not grounded in state law or “compelling scientific evidence” showing harm to wildlife and habitat should be eliminated to help encourage more hunting and fishing.

Both Mr. Kindle and Mr. Sexton declined to comment on specific rules because they had not seen the documents.

“The number one reason why people give up hunting and fishing is the lack of opportunity and access,” Mr. Sexton said.

Federal land managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs inside reservations also is expected to be unaffected by the order.

The sea was stormy on Sept. 26, 1918, as a convoy of merchant ships navigated the Bristol Channel in southern England. Escorting them was the Tampa, a 190-foot U.S. Coast Guard cutter with the mission of protecting the boats from German submarines.

The cutter separated from the convoy in the misty night to take on supplies and coal at a port. And then it disappeared. For more than a century, its fate has been an enduring naval mystery of World War I.

This week, British divers announced that the wreck of the Tampa had at last been found, nestled 320 feet deep in murky waters about 50 miles off the Cornish coast.

A torpedo from a German submarine killed all those aboard the cutter: 111 Coast Guardsmen, four U.S. Navy personnel and 15 British Navy personnel and civilians.

Adm. Kevin Lunday, commandant of the Coast Guard, said that the Tampa was the largest single American naval combat loss of life in World War I and that it had left “an enduring grief in our service.”

The discovery was the culmination of a three-year effort by the Gasperados Dive Team, a group of British explorers and researchers. They combed shipping logs and wartime messages, and collaborated with the Coast Guard to pinpoint the path and resting place of the vanished vessel.

Barbara Mortimer, a Gasperados researcher, collated scraps of information, sometimes single lines of text that by themselves offered little to go on. But once all the information was meticulously pieced together, she and her teammates narrowed the search to an area clustered with thousands of wrecks from warships, commercial ships and fishing vessels lost over centuries.

The timeline of the Tampa’s final moments slowly emerged.

“Urgent. Priority,” said a telegram dated Sept. 27, 1918, sent to the admiralty in London. “USS Tampa detached herself from convoy.”

The telegram provided the longitude and latitude of that last sighting. At 7 p.m., the ship was seen on the horizon, steering toward the port of Milford Haven, it said. At 8:45 p.m., a wireless operator “felt the shock of an underwater explosion,” the telegram said.

Then, in the hours that followed, Milford Haven reported that the Tampa was 12 hours overdue for its scheduled arrival.

The research team assembled a number of clues about where the Tampa ended up.

One telegram said a seaplane had spotted a “considerable wreckage” field of seven to eight square miles. Two bodies, in Tampa uniforms, eventually washed ashore and were buried in Wales, Ms. Mortimer said in an interview. She said the researchers also studied German U-boat records.

The Coast Guard provided historical records, technical data and archival images of the ship’s features so divers knew what to look for in the deep.

In April 2023, the team made its first two dives looking for the Tampa. Seven more followed, and an assortment of shipwrecks were spotted and examined.

On Sunday they zeroed in on an area where a British hydrographic survey had noted a “significant magnetic anomaly” suggesting the possible location of a steel wreck.

That information was checked against convoy records, Ms. Mortimer said. The team decided, “It’s worth a look,” she said. But she added, “I did not have high expectations.”

Dominic Robinson, one of the team’s divers, lowered himself into the cold, dark waters of the Celtic Sea in the late afternoon of April 26.

At about 311 feet down, he spotted wreckage, piled high. As he drifted slowly over the debris field, his light picked up objects from the chaotic jumble. Some stood out: There was a brass fire extinguisher, an anchor, shell casings and a high-pressure steam boiler that was used in the engines of ships like the Tampa.

Surveying the mound, Mr. Robinson said in an interview that he had a “gut feeling” that the ship had been blown apart, making the bow crumble and absorb the impact. “And the rest of the ship settled down behind it,” he said.

Then he drifted over some crockery. Another member of the team, Jacob MacKenzie, found a similar piece that was inscribed with the maker’s mark: “New Jersey.”

They had an “American connection,” Mr. Robinson said.

“That instantly connects me with the people on the ship,” he said in a video of the dive. “They would have eaten out of those bowls. All these people would have had parents, would have had nearest and dearest, and none of them knew where they are.”

The Coast Guard is gathering data from the Gasperados’ finds to confirm it as an officially designated war grave, said William H. Thiesen, the Coast Guard’s Atlantic area historian.

The Coast Guard has been contacting the families of each lost Tampa crew member over many years, awarding them a posthumous Purple Heart medal, Mr. Thiesen said.

“It provides closure to a chapter that has been open for 100 years,” he said.

Jeremy Davids, 48, of Florida said that a relative, Wesley James Nobles, died while serving aboard the Tampa at the age of 20.

“Drowned foreign waters sinking of Tampa 9-26-1918,” the official record of Mr. Nobles’ death says. Mr. Nobles had a rating of “boy,” an enlisted rank for younger crew members.

“It feels good knowing the fact that not only him but the other soldiers who lost their lives that day can finally rest in peace,” Mr. Davids said in an interview.