Oregon Proposal to Ban Hunting, Fishing, and More Fails to Make Ballot

In January, David Michelson, the main backer of the measure, told the Willamette Weekly that his effort was similar to the women’s suffrage movement and that while he was under no illusions that it would pass, he hoped it would “help people think differently” about what constitutes animal cruelty. IP28 was Michelson’s third iteration of the effort; all of his attempts have so far failed to reach the ballot.

Unsurprisingly, IP28 sparked fierce opposition, not just from outdoorsmen, but a broad coalition of interests. Marie Neumiller, Western States Manager for the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, said that the threat of the proposal was galvanizing and created some positive outcomes.

“It's given us an opportunity to tell the story of the North American Model of Conservation [and] to make sure that people truly understand what hunting, fishing, and trapping really are,” she told MeatEater. “It also gave us an opportunity to collaborate with other groups that are tangential to but not necessarily in the sporting community. Ranching communities, fine culinary arts places, and others realized the impacts these rules would have had, not only on their industries, but on Oregonians’ choices and preferences all around.”

The extreme measure was also roundly condemned by the state’s politicians, including Democratic Governor Tina Kotek, who said that “criminalizing activities like hunting and fishing would be wrong for Oregon."

While the proposal was shocking, Neumiller mentioned that conversations around it in the state were often encouraging. “During a coalition meeting with the Farm Bureau we had a group speak up and the individual speaking was actually vegan. But she said that her and her group were fighting IP28 because while they don’t consume meat, they supported the rights of people involved in animal agriculture and the sporting community to pursue their passions and meat preferences,” Neumiller said.

Ultimately, what killed the proposal was simply that its backers failed to gather the minimum number of verified signatures to make the ballot; while they submitted 142,000 signatures, only 104,262 were validated by the Secretary of State's office, failing to reach the threshold of 117,173 valid signatures.

According to Neumiller, one of the likely reasons so many invalid signatures had to do with a longer-than-usual signature collection effort, which increases the risk of duplicates and people moving out of the state.

Though the proposal’s flop is cause for celebration and relief, Neumiller says that both broad and more targeted anti-hunting efforts around the country, particularly “small hits” such as Colorado’s recent decision to severely restrict trapping, still pose serious threats.

“David Michelson’s goal was a long-term goal. He wanted to bring this conversation forward more frequently and change the way we look at wildlife and livestock so that eventually this kind of proposal would not be considered extreme,” she said. “It’s important for us to keep up the same level of motivation we've had leading into this ballot petition and keep singing the praises of sportsmen and women to make sure the general public understands what conservation is.”