A ballot measure that would make hunting and fishing criminal acts has cleared its first major hurdle in Oregon, and the backlash is crossing party lines.
Initiative Petition 28, driven by a group of Portland-based animal rights activists, would expand the state's animal cruelty laws to criminalize injuring, breeding or killing animals except in cases of self-defense or for veterinary care such as spaying, neutering or euthanasia. Crucially, it would strip out the long-standing exemptions that currently protect lawful hunting, fishing, wildlife management, scientific and agricultural research, pest control and the slaughter of livestock.
Last month the campaign cleared the signature bar to reach the November 2026 ballot, submitting more than 126,000 signatures against the 117,000 required. The Oregon Secretary of State's Office must still validate them through statistical sampling, and petitioners can keep gathering signatures until July 2 to cover any that are rejected.
Supporters frame the measure as a moral reset rather than a punishment. "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 campaign's website states. The proposal would also create a transition fund to retrain anyone who loses their livelihood if it passes.
For anglers, the stakes are blunt: passage would eliminate fishing and hunting licenses statewide, gutting the main funding source for fish stocking and wildlife management. Oregon's commercial fishing industry generated an estimated $517 million in household income and supported around 10,300 jobs in 2025. The state's beef sector exported $127 million worth of product in 2023.
The opposition is unusually broad. The Oregon Farm Bureau, the Oregon Hunters' Association, the Sportsmen's Alliance and the Oregon Cattlemen's Association have all come out against IP 28. The Farm Bureau warned the measure "would effectively turn Oregon into a 'no kill or harm' sanctuary state, eliminating in-state meat, dairy, and animal protein production [...] Oregonians would be forced either into a vegan lifestyle or to rely on food shipped in from other states or countries."
What makes the fight notable is that the political establishment on both sides has lined up against it. Republican state senator and gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan called the petition an attack on 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.
Democratic Governor Tina Kotek, whose allies the measure's critics have tried to tie it to, also rejected it outright. "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. "This petition does nothing to help that, and it risks criminalizing common agricultural practices that are critical to Oregon's economy."
The measure still has to survive signature verification before it officially lands on the ballot. But the trajectory is striking against a wider national backdrop: while Oregon weighs criminalizing the practices, a separate campaign is pushing to enshrine the right to hunt and fish in the Colorado Constitution. For now, Oregon's anglers face the prospect of voting in November on whether casting a line remains legal at all.
