Oregon ballot measure that would have criminalized hunting and fishing fails to qualify for vote

Oregon hunters, anglers and farmers can breathe a sigh of relief.

Initiative Petition 28 — the deceptively branded animal-rights proposal that would have effectively criminalized hunting, fishing, ranching and a long list of other normal activities — will not appear on Oregon’s November ballot after all.

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And this one came down to the wire.

Supporters of IP28 submitted more than 142,000 signatures, comfortably exceeding the 117,173 required to qualify for the ballot. But after two rounds of verification, the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office determined that only 104,262 of those signatures were valid.

That left the campaign roughly 13,000 signatures short.

Good.

Because while proponents called IP28 the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions Act — or the warm and fuzzy-sounding "PEACE Act" — the proposal was never simply about prosecuting people who abuse animals. Oregon already has laws for that.

IP28 sought to remove the exemptions in Oregon’s animal-cruelty statutes that protect lawful hunting, fishing, trapping, ranching, farming, pest control and accepted animal-husbandry practices.

Under the proposal, killing or injuring an animal would have been classified as abuse unless it was necessary to prevent immediate harm to a person or another animal.

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That means hunters harvesting deer, anglers keeping fish, ranchers processing cattle, commercial fishermen bringing seafood to shore and farmers controlling pests could all have potentially faced criminal consequences.

The proposal was so extreme that opposing it became one of the few genuinely bipartisan causes left in American politics.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, all 37 Democrats in the Oregon House and Republican lawmakers across the state spoke out against it. The Oregon Farm Bureau, Oregon Veterinary Medical Association and Oregon Hunters Association also opposed the initiative.

Kotek said Friday that she was "relieved" IP28 failed to qualify.

"I know from conversations with Oregonians across the state that this measure would have done nothing to help them," she said.

She’s right.

IP28 would not have created some peaceful wildlife paradise where every deer, elk, fish, cow and invasive pest lived happily ever after. It would have undermined the very wildlife-management system that keeps animal populations and habitats healthy.

Hunters and anglers provide enormous amounts of conservation funding through license sales and federal excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, archery equipment and fishing gear. Those dollars help states acquire habitat, maintain boat ramps, conduct wildlife research, restore species and operate public recreation programs used by everyone.

Travis Thompson, a conservation advocate who helped lead the successful effort to establish a constitutional right to hunt and fish in Florida, recently explained to OutKick Outdoors that sportsmen’s contributions support far more than hunting and fishing.

"It’s used to acquire lands. It’s used for boat-ramp maintenance. It’s used for youth programs. It’s used for all sorts of things that everyone benefits from," Thompson said. "The places where I hunt aren’t just limited to me hunting. There are people who bike on them, ride horses, walk their dogs, hike or bird-watch."

Watch Travis Thompson's full interview with OutKick Outdoors here:

Eliminating hunting and fishing would not eliminate the need for wildlife management, either. It would simply transfer the cost from sportsmen to taxpayers — assuming the state continued managing wildlife at all.

Without regulated hunting, growing wildlife populations can lead to habitat destruction, disease, starvation, crop damage and more vehicle collisions. Invasive species would create another obvious problem, since IP28 did not include a broad exemption allowing them to be removed before they devastated native ecosystems.

As Thompson put it, wildlife policy must be driven by science rather than "emotions or feelings."

That is exactly why the defeat of IP28 matters beyond Oregon.

Across the country, hunters, anglers and conservation groups are fighting two related battles. In some states, activists are attempting to restrict hunting, fishing, trapping, the use of live bait and other traditional outdoor activities. In others, sportsmen are trying to pass constitutional protections recognizing the right to hunt and fish.

Florida became the 24th state to adopt such a protection when voters approved Amendment 2 in 2024 with 67.4% support. Thompson and the International Order of Theodore Roosevelt (IOTR) are now working with lawmakers and advocates in states including Ohio, Colorado, Delaware and New Hampshire.

The point of those amendments is not to create a free-for-all or override wildlife regulations. States would still manage seasons, bag limits and conservation policy using science.

Instead, they create a higher legal threshold for activists seeking to eliminate hunting and fishing altogether.

"We know that anti-hunters are coming," Thompson said. "What we want is to ensure that when they get here, we’ve got a backstop."

IP28 is a perfect example of why that backstop could become important.

Four years ago, Thompson noted, many people dismissed an earlier version of the Oregon proposal because they didn't believe it would ever reach the ballot. It was too extreme. This year, the campaign came close enough to submit more than 142,000 signatures.

The fact that approximately 38,000 of those signatures were ultimately rejected is worth celebrating. But it would be foolish to assume the campaign is dead.

This was chief petitioner David Michelson’s third failed attempt to place the issue before Oregon voters. And he has made it clear that supporters view this as a long-term campaign, not a one-election project.

"We know that this is unlikely to pass in 2026," Michelson said in a previous interview. "No one on the campaign thinks that this will pass right now."

Instead, Michelson said the goal was to create an organization capable of pursuing similar initiatives in Oregon "in multiple election cycles in a row" and eventually launching them in other states.

That should get everyone’s attention.

Getting it onto the ballot would have helped IP28 supporters to collect voter data, build a donor base, normalize the proposal and identify language capable of attracting broader support next time.

They failed.

That is unquestionably good news for Oregon’s hunters, anglers, farmers, ranchers, wildlife professionals and consumers.

But they also got close — much closer than during previous attempts.

So enjoy the win, but keep paying attention.

Because IP28 will not be on the ballot this November, but the larger effort to eliminate hunting and fishing rights is not going anywhere. And neither can the people determined to protect them.

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