Oregon Petition to Ban Hunting and Fishing Just Cleared a Big Hurdle — Here’s What It Means
Oregon just made things interesting. Last week a Portland animal rights group turned in more than 126,000 signatures for Initiative Petition 28 — well past the 117,000 they needed to get it on the November ballot. The signatures still have to go through verification, and they can keep collecting until July 2, but this thing is officially in motion.
What they’re pushing is pretty straightforward on paper and pretty extreme in practice. The measure would expand animal cruelty laws so that injuring, breeding, or killing animals becomes illegal except for self-defense or basic veterinary care. That means stripping out the exemptions that currently protect hunting, fishing, trapping, wildlife management, scientific research, pest control, and even raising livestock for food. They’re calling it the PEACE Act and say it’s about giving animals “the right to life and bodily autonomy.” Not about punishing people, just protecting animals.
If it passes, the ripple effects would hit hard. Oregon’s commercial fishing industry supports over 10,000 jobs and hundreds of millions in household income. Beef exports alone were $127 million in 2023. Lose hunting and fishing license money and you lose a big chunk of the funding that keeps wildlife management running. The petition does include some kind of transition fund to help folks retrain for new jobs, but a lot of rural families and businesses aren’t exactly lining up to find out how that works in real life.
The pushback has been loud and bipartisan. Governor Tina Kotek came out against it, Republican leaders are calling it a job killer, and groups like the Oregon Farm Bureau, Oregon Hunters Association, and Cattlemen’s Association are all sounding the alarm. Even in a state like Oregon, this one feels like it crossed a line for a lot of regular folks who hunt, fish, or work the land.
Stuff like this always starts somewhere else, but it’s worth watching. These ballot measures have a way of spreading if nobody pays attention. Oregon voters are going to have to decide how far is too far when it comes to rewriting rules that have been around forever.
