A sweeping animal rights initiative that would effectively make hunting and fishing a criminal offense in Oregon has cleared some remarkable hurdles over the past eighteen months — only to stumble at the most consequential one yet. As of mid-July 2026, Oregon's controversial Initiative Petition 28, also known as the PEACE Act, which critics say could effectively ban hunting and fishing by criminalizing animal slaughter, failed its first round of signature verification, the Secretary of State's office confirmed. But the campaign isn't finished. "I can confirm that IP 28 did not qualify for the ballot based on the first sample of signatures," said Connor Radnovich, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State's office. "The signature verification team has moved on to the second, larger sample."
That two-stage verification process means that what appears to be a death blow is, legally speaking, only a stumble. The measure could still qualify for the November 2026 general election — or it could die quietly in a state office. Either way, the story of how a Portland-based animal rights group pushed the most far-reaching anti-hunting initiative in Oregon's history to the edge of the ballot is one that every hunter, angler, rancher, and rural voter in the country needs to understand.
What IP28 Actually Says — and What It Would Do
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 its face, that might sound like a modest reform. In practice, the scope is enormous.
Oregon Initiative Petition 28 — officially titled the PEACE Act (People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions) — would eliminate the legal exemptions that currently protect hunting, fishing, trapping, and farming from Oregon's animal abuse statutes (ORS 167.315–167.333). Under current Oregon law, these activities are explicitly exempted from criminal animal abuse charges. IP28 would remove those exemptions entirely, making all licensed hunting classified as animal abuse under Oregon law. The reach doesn't stop at a deer stand or a fishing hole. Sportsmen in Oregon are facing an existential threat: a ballot initiative seeking to outlaw all forms of hunting, fishing, and trapping, as well as the slaughter of livestock and poultry, rodeos, animal breeding practices, animal use for medical research, and more.
An "animal" is defined by both current and proposed legislation as "any nonhuman mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, or fish." Invertebrates — crabs, shrimp, oysters — sit outside that definition, offering some relief to Oregon's shellfish industry. Everything else, from elk to salmon to the rat in your garage wall, would fall under the law's protection. The ban would extend well beyond recreational hunting and fishing to commercial fishing and crabbing on the Oregon coast. And it would even criminalize routine pest control in urban areas.
The initiative would also raise standards of welfare for all animals under human care to the same standards Oregon uses for pets and establish a fund to help transition people away from livestock farming and other jobs that involve killing animals. The certified language on the ballot title leaves no room for ambiguity: it clearly states that it "criminalizes breeding practices, injuring/killing animals, including for food, hunting, fishing."
The Numbers Behind the Signature Battle
To appreciate what happened this week, it helps to trace the full arc of the petition's signature campaign. The People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions (PEACE) Act, which is more commonly known as IP28, turned in 142,784 signatures to the Oregon Secretary of State's Office ahead of the deadline. That figure is significant — it's about 22% more than the 117,173 valid signatures needed to qualify.
The problem is that raw signature counts are never the whole story. Petition circulators generally aim to gather about 150% of the required signatures to account for invalid or duplicate signatures. At 142,784 submitted against a 117,173 threshold, the campaign came in at roughly 122% — a thinner buffer than organizers likely wanted. That means about 82% of the signatures they turned in would have to be real, but the first check showed they didn't reach that mark.
The IP28 group turned in 142,784 signatures on July 2. To get on the ballot, they need 117,173 signatures that are checked and approved. The path forward now runs through a second, more comprehensive signature review. Officials have until August 2 to determine whether the measure qualifies for the November general election. Whether IP28 lives or dies as a 2026 ballot measure will come down to whether that expanded sample finds enough valid names — a process the Secretary of State's office is currently working through.
Three Tries, One Goal: The Initiative's Long History
Oregon voters and outdoorsmen would be forgiven for a sense of déjà vu. IP28 is the third iteration of an initiative first introduced by animal rights advocates in 2020. Each version carries the same core goal: eliminate Oregon's statutory exemptions for hunting, fishing, trapping, and farming from animal abuse law.
IP28 is the latest iteration of an initiative that was first filed as IP13 in 2020 and later refiled as IP3 for the 2024 ballot. Each version carries forward the same core goal of eliminating legal exemptions for hunting, fishing, and trapping in Oregon. The earlier versions failed to gather sufficient signatures. This marks the campaign's strongest showing after two previous attempts to qualify for the ballot. In other words, the movement has been learning, organizing, and growing with each cycle — and the fact that it came this close in 2026 is itself a warning sign for the sporting community.
The initiative is backed primarily by out-of-state animal rights organizations and has faced consistent, broad-based opposition from Oregon's hunting, fishing, farming, and tribal communities across every cycle. That out-of-state funding dynamic has drawn pointed criticism from opponents, who argue the measure is being imposed on rural Oregonians by urban ideologues with no stake in the state's agricultural or outdoor economy.
The Backers Openly Admit They Don't Expect to Win
Perhaps the most striking element of the entire IP28 saga is what the campaign's own leadership has said about their expectations. A group of animal rights activists submitted their final ballot initiative signatures to criminalize hunting and fishing in Oregon, but even they don't think it has any chance of passing if it qualifies for the November ballot.
While many posts on social media raised alarm about the proposal's impact on people's hobbies and livelihoods, backers of IP28 have repeatedly said they don't expect the legislation to pass. David Michelson, one of the chief petitioners behind IP28, said in a filmed 2025 interview that the campaign was less about passing the initiative and more about shifting public attitudes on animal rights and welfare. Michelson made similar statements publicly as recently as the July 2 signature submission deadline. "We're asking, let's make the default option not kill animals," said Michelson. "It is trying to shift all of us together."
That framing — ballots as billboards rather than real legislative tools — should not reassure anyone in the hunting community. A measure that reaches Oregon voters in November 2026, regardless of how it performs at the polls, seeds the public consciousness with the idea that hunting and fishing are morally equivalent to animal cruelty. That's exactly the kind of long-game strategy that animal rights organizations have deployed for decades, incrementally reshaping cultural norms around activities that were once unquestioned.
The Economic Stakes for Oregon
The opponents of IP28 have made their economic case loud and clear, and the numbers are genuinely staggering. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated Oregon anglers and hunters contributed $1.8 billion to the state economy in 2022. The Oregon Hunters Association puts the current figure even higher. The organization is highlighting the potential impact it would have on the state's 330,000-plus licensed hunters and 500,000-plus licensed anglers, as well as the fact that hunting and fishing currently generate an estimated $1.9 billion annually in economic activity within the state.
Rural communities would absorb the sharpest blow. Rural communities derive 40 to 60 percent of annual retail sales from fall hunting seasons, according to Oregon State University research from 2019. Hotels, gas stations, hardware stores, sporting goods retailers, meat processors, and guide services in small Oregon towns are built around the assumption that hunters will arrive in autumn with licenses, tags, and cash to spend. Eliminate the hunt, and you eliminate the economic engine of entire counties.
The damage wouldn't stop at hunting camps. 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 in billions across the state. Federal conservation funding would also evaporate almost immediately. Oregon would lose access to approximately $185 million in annual federal funding through the Pittman-Robertson Act, which directs excise taxes on hunting and fishing equipment to state wildlife agencies. That money funds everything from habitat restoration to wildlife surveys to public access programs — the very infrastructure that keeps Oregon's fish and game populations healthy.
Voices from the Field: Hunters, Anglers, and Industry Leaders Respond
Organized opposition to IP28 has been swift, bipartisan, and unusually unified. Major industry groups such as the Oregon Farm Bureau, the Oregon Hunters Association, the Sportsmen's Alliance, and the Oregon Cattlemen's Association have all expressed strong opposition to the petition. That coalition spans urban and rural, Democrat and Republican, commercial and recreational — a breadth of opposition that is itself a statement about who would be harmed if the measure passed.
Todd Adkins, executive director of the Oregon Hunters Association, has been one of the most outspoken critics. "This extreme proposal is causing a lot of heartburn for a lot of folks across the state of Oregon," Adkins said. He goes further when detailing the cascading consequences: "Commercial fishing is gone. Ranching is gone. It would literally flip this state on its head. It would change everything overnight." From his vantage point, this is not a debate about hunting — it's a debate about whether Oregon's rural economy will exist in its current form a generation from now.
National organizations have also stepped into the fight. National conservation groups such as the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership have all come out publicly against the state initiative. The Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation framed the stakes in terms of the larger conservation framework that American hunters have built and funded for over a century: "Beyond individual impacts, IP-28 poses a direct threat to the North American Model of Wildlife Management, a proven framework that has guided successful conservation efforts in the United States for over a century. Criminalizing hunting, fishing, and trapping would slash this critical revenue stream, cripple science-based wildlife management, and end cherished traditions that have connected generations to Oregon's outdoors."
The opposition crosses party lines in ways that are rare in today's political climate. The Oregon Sportsmen Legislative Caucus, made up of Democrats and Republicans in the Oregon State Senate, has also issued a joint statement opposing IP28, calling it an attack on the state's rural economy and cultural heritage. Even Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, a Democrat, has drawn a clear line. Kotek said: "Criminalizing activities like hunting and fishing would be wrong for Oregon. I know tribal leaders, family farmers and ranchers and Oregonians across the state who care deeply about protecting our land, waters and wildlife." Republican challenger Christine Drazan was even more direct: "IP 28 is an attack by Tina Kotek's allies on Oregon's economy and our way of life."
Restaurant owners and small business operators near Oregon's coasts and river valleys are equally alarmed. At Portland's Dan & Louis Oyster Bar, owner Meinert Wachsmuth put it in personal terms: "I think it has more of an impact on families. Hunting and fishing create bonds you can't find anywhere else."
Oregon Against the National Tide
What makes the IP28 campaign so remarkable in a national context is that it is swimming hard against a powerful current. Across the country, lawmakers have been moving to enshrine hunting and fishing rights, not restrict them. If Oregon voters were to approve the proposal, the state would stand in stark contrast to a broader trend across the United States, where lawmakers have moved in the opposite direction by protecting rather than restricting hunting and fishing rights. The National Conference of State Legislatures says that 24 states now protect the right to hunt and fish in their constitutions. Many of these constitutional amendments have been adopted since the late 1990s, often in response to concerns that animal rights campaigns could eventually limit access to hunting and fishing.
The architecture of those constitutional protections was designed precisely to prevent scenarios like IP28. States that have enshrined hunting and fishing rights constitutionally have effectively closed off the citizen initiative route as a vehicle for bans. Oregon, which lacks such a constitutional provision, is uniquely exposed — a reality that IP28's backers have understood from the beginning and that Oregon's legislature has so far declined to address.
The Conservation Argument the Activists Won't Make
One of the most glaring omissions in the IP28 campaign's public messaging is any serious engagement with conservation science. The petition represents a fundamental challenge to Oregon's 160-year tradition of wildlife management through regulated harvest. In that tradition, hunting and fishing licenses aren't just permissions — they're the financial backbone of the entire wildlife management system.
If IP28 passed, there would be less money for wildlife management because it would eliminate fishing and hunting licenses. That's not a secondary consequence — it's a structural collapse. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife relies on license revenue and federal Pittman-Robertson funds to manage habitat, control invasive species, conduct population surveys, and maintain the public access infrastructure that makes outdoor recreation possible. Remove hunting and fishing, and the agency's budget shrinks dramatically at the exact moment it would be asked to manage exploding ungulate populations without the tool of regulated harvest.
The irony — or the deliberate blindness, depending on your perspective — is that the animals IP28 claims to protect would almost certainly fare worse in a world without regulated hunting. Unchecked deer and elk populations crash from starvation and disease. Predator-prey dynamics collapse without management. The habitat that hunters have funded for decades through excise taxes and license fees would degrade over time. None of this is speculative — it is the empirical record of what happens when regulated harvest is removed from a wildlife management equation.
What Happens Next: The Second Sample and the November Clock
For now, the fate of IP28 rests with the Oregon Secretary of State's elections division and their second, larger signature sample. The math is tight but not impossible for the campaign. The IP28 group turned in 142,784 signatures on July 2. To get on the ballot, they need 117,173 signatures that are checked and approved, meaning about 82% of the signatures they turned in would have to be real. Failing the first sample doesn't close the door — it just raises the pressure on the second review.
Officials have until August 2 to determine whether the measure qualifies for the November general election. If the second sample verifies enough valid signatures, IP28 advances to a voter decision in November. If it falls short again, the campaign is done for this cycle — only to almost certainly resurface in 2028 or 2030 under yet another petition number with the same core language.
Even backers of Initiative Petition 28 don't expect voters to approve it if it reaches the ballot. But "longshot" and "harmless" are not the same thing. The 142,000-plus signatures already gathered represent a substantial and motivated constituency. The national animal rights organizations that have funded and organized these campaigns over six years are not going away. And each cycle, they learn more about Oregon's political geography, refine their messaging, and inch closer to a qualifying number.
Why Every Sportsman Should Be Paying Attention
The IP28 saga carries a clear message for hunters and anglers who live well outside Oregon's borders: what starts in the Pacific Northwest rarely stays there. The strategic playbook — file a broad initiative, use it to generate media coverage, normalize the conversation around hunting as cruelty, and refine the effort with each failed cycle — is replicable in any state that lacks constitutional protections for hunting and fishing rights.
Oregon's situation is a case study in what organized, patient advocacy can achieve even against long odds. The state has 330,000 licensed hunters and half a million licensed anglers. It has a bipartisan legislative caucus, a governor from both major parties, and every major agricultural and conservation organization lined up against IP28. And yet the campaign still gathered 142,000 signatures, still cleared the raw numeric threshold, and still forced a multi-week signature verification process that has the November ballot hanging in the balance.
Opponents frame the measure as an attack on science-based conservation, rural livelihoods, and common-sense policies that have sustained healthy wildlife populations for generations. That framing is accurate, but it alone has not been enough to stop the petition from advancing further than any anti-hunting initiative in Oregon history. The lesson for the broader sporting community is that passion and tradition are not sufficient defenses. Organization, funding, and political engagement — the same tools the other side has been deploying for years — are what actually determine outcomes.
For now, Oregon's hunters, ranchers, anglers, and rural communities wait on the Secretary of State's office. The second signature sample will tell the story. But win or lose in 2026, the campaign to criminalize an American way of life is not ending — it's just pausing before the next attempt.
