By MIA MALDONADO/Oregon Capital Chronicle
Last week, petitioners hoping to ban fishing and hunting in Oregon reached a milestone in their attempt to change state law.
Initiative Petition 28, led by Portland-based animal rights activists, aims to expand animal cruelty laws and criminalize injuring, breeding or killing animals except in cases of self-defense or for veterinary care, such as spaying, neutering or administering euthanasia.
On Friday, the group surpassed the required 117,000 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot — submitting more than 126,000 signatures to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office.
The office must verify those signatures using statistical sampling procedures before the petition can officially make it to the November ballot. If those signatures are valid, the new signatures bring the state closer to outlawing methods essential to some of its key industries.
It’s likely some signatures will be rejected, but petitioners can still submit signatures until July 2. Petition circulators generally aim to gather about 150% of the required signatures to account for invalid or duplicate signatures.
Initiative Petition 28 faces significant opposition across the aisle
Activities such as lawful hunting, fishing, wildlife management, scientific or agricultural research, pest control and slaughtering livestock are exempt from animal cruelty laws.
Initiative Petition 28 aims to remove those exemptions.
“The reason we are seeking to prohibit these activities is not to be punitive towards anyone currently involved with the injuring, killing or breeding of animals, but rather to be protective of the needs of the animals and to codify their right to life and bodily autonomy in law,” the petition campaign website reads.
Criminalizing those practices would have significant repercussions on key industries such as Oregon’s beef industry, which brought in $127 million worth in exports in 2023, the fishing industry, which generated $517 million in household income and supported 10,300 jobs in 2025, and for research at public universities that bring billions to the state.
Major industry groups such as the Oregon Farm Bureau, the Oregon Hunter’s Association, the Sportsmen’s Alliance and the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association all have expressed strong opposition to the petition.
If it passed, there would be less money for wildlife management because it would eliminate fishing and hunting licenses.
Many Democrats and Republicans alike have denounced this initiative, including the gubernatorial candidates running in November.
Christine Drazan, a Republican Canby state senator, called the petition an attack by Gov. Tina Kotek’s allies against the state economy.
“Banning hunting, fishing, and basic animal husbandry would kill thousands of jobs and threaten our food supply at a time when we can least afford it,” Drazan said in a post to X.
Kotek, however, also opposes the petition.
“I know tribal leaders, family farmers and ranchers and Oregonians across the state who care deeply about protecting our land, waters and wildlife,” Kotek said in a campaign video posted to social media. “This petition does nothing to help that, and it risks criminalizing common agricultural practices that are critical to Oregon’s economy.”
If passed, the petition would create a transition fund to help people train for new jobs if they’ve lost their livelihood because of it.
The petitioners have the right to try to pursue this ban under Oregon’s initiative petition process, a process citizens may follow to create their own law without needing sponsorship from a state lawmaker.
Oregon Capital Chronicle is a nonprofit Salem-based news service that focuses its reporting on Oregon state government, politics and policy.
This proposed bill would not only ban hunting and fishing in Oregon it would kill fishing and crabbing in Oregon. It would also eliminate killing of any pest or sick pet. There would be no meat in our stores in Oregon. This proposed bill is an attempt to force every person in Oregon to become vegan. If you have a sick hurting pet and you want to end their suffering, that would no longer be an option. Any meat, fish or crab you want to eat would have to be purchased outside of this state. It will put fisherman out of business and those that sell fish out of business. It would effectively end any control of deer, elk, bear, cougar to be managed. You wouldn’t be able to even kill mice or rats that nigh invade your home. This is being sponsored by people from outside our state that have no skin in the game! Everyone needs to go to the polls in November and vote this evil, Kill Oregon bill down!
It would be helpful for the media everywhere to stop calling this the hunting and fishing ban when in reality it will also affect every single farmer who does any kind of slaughter of animals or poultry thus affecting the food supply chain for everyone, including those who work for such industries. It would go a long way for the media to put out a true headline rather than an attention-grabbing and misleading headline. Please spread the word amongst your media cohorts.
The proponents of this ballot measure claim to be “animal rights activists.” Based on their proposal, it is clear that their interest in animals is pathetically inadequate. In scientific taxonomy, insects not only belong in the Kingdom Animalia; they dominate the Kingdom. Whether measured by number or aggregate weight, insects constitute a substantial majority of the Kingdom. If the proposed ballot initiative is to be intellectually honest, it must also protect insects. If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it right. Swatting that spider should be a felony! (Damaging the spider’s habitat — the web — might only be a misdemeanor.) And, once insects have rights, it ought to include all rights. Keep in mind, though, that when we give cockroaches the right to vote, they outnumber us so we’ll have a cockroach President. (Hmmm.)
That is the stupidest possible vote when you consider that the wild animals and fish are managed thru hunting and fishing. Otherwise the wildlife would die of terrible deathes as nature manages the number of animals being eaten by other wild animals and diseases.