Watch the full episode in the player above — everything in this article comes straight from the episode.
Prefer audio? Listen to the podcast version:
The Oregon hunting ban initiative IP 28, backed by a group calling itself the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions, or PEACE Act, would criminalize killing or injuring an animal for almost any reason. That includes hunting, fishing, ranching, farming, trapping, and even pest control, and it is close enough to the ballot that it deserves a hard look.
Key Takeaways
- The initiative would criminalize hunting, fishing, trapping, farming, ranching, and pest control, with only veterinary practice and self-defense exempted.
- It had 105,000 signatures as of the recording and needs 117,000 to reach the November 2026 ballot.
- The Oregon Hunters Association says the economic hit runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
- The measure would even reclassify common breeding practices like artificial insemination as sexual assault.
What is the Oregon hunting ban initiative IP 28?
IP 28 is a proposed ballot initiative that would make it a crime to kill or injure an animal for any reason other than self-defense. The only other carve-out is for some veterinary practices. Everything else that involves an animal dying is on the table.
The initiative would criminalize injuring or killing animals across farming, ranching, hunting, fishing, and trapping, plus research, teaching, and pest control. It is written to take the legs out from under animal agriculture and push the state toward what its backers call a sanctuary state.
Who is behind the PEACE Act petition?
David Michelson is the chief petitioner. His pitch leans on the claim that 30% of Oregon agricultural sales are animal-related and 70% are crops, so, in his words, the state could make 100% of those crops if it wanted to. It could. It just shouldn’t.
This is not the group’s first run at it. By the account in the episode, this is roughly the third go-around for the same idea, and the concern is that supporters will simply keep recycling it until voters get worn down.
Why would banning hunting hurt Oregon’s economy?
Because hunting and fishing licenses fund conservation, and killing those licenses kills the money that manages wildlife. The Oregon Hunters Association put the potential economic impact at hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and warned it is not only a livelihood but how a lot of families feed themselves.
The damage does not stop at hunters. Show Waxmith, a fourth-generation owner of Dan and Louis Oyster Bar in Old Town, said her restaurant has been struggling to stay afloat and relies on every bit of seafood it can sell. Take that away and it devastates restaurants, grocery stores, and the farmers behind them.
Oregon is already fragile on this front. This is the same region driving businesses out with taxes and regulation, a pattern that echoes the Seattle office vacancy record and the broader California business exodus. Layering a hunting and farming ban on top of chronic budget deficits is not a recovery plan.
What about pest control and ranching?
Under the initiative, trapping mice or rats in your home, a restaurant, or a hospital would be criminalized. So would trapping pests and vermin generally. If a home has an infestation and you can no longer kill the pest, the practical answer the measure offers is to leave it be.
The complete disregard and lack of common sense and self-serving individuals that are behind this, it’s really embarrassing.
On the ranching side, the initiative would term common breeding practices such as artificial insemination as sexual assault. That single provision would gut the ranching and dairy industries, both of which are major economic drivers, especially in Eastern Oregon where ranches dominate.
Does the measure protect every animal?
No. By Michelson’s own admission the initiative does not protect insects, and it reportedly does not cover pests, clams, or mollusks. Research is treated as a separate category, which is why the OHSU primate lab is being discussed as a transition to a primate sanctuary rather than being banned outright.
The claimed fix for people who lose their livelihoods is a job-training fund financed by the very licenses the measure eliminates. That math does not hold. You cannot fund a transition program by first destroying the revenue that pays for it.
Is IP 28 a serious threat to Oregon’s way of life?
It is serious enough to organize against. There is a way of life outside Portland built on hunting, fishing, and ranching, and IP 28 strikes at the heart of it. The Oregon Hunters Association is urging people to join the fight against the initiative.
The deeper worry is momentum. Oregon has a track record of passing sweeping measures and discovering the consequences later, the way Measure 110’s drug decriminalization was followed by a spike in overdoses. Actions have consequences, and this one would land hardest on the parts of the state that can least absorb it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many signatures does IP 28 need to reach the ballot?
It needs 117,000 signatures to make the November 2026 ballot and had gathered 105,000 as of the recording, collected since July 2024.
What would still be legal if IP 28 passed?
Self-defense and some veterinary practices are the stated exceptions, and the initiative reportedly does not cover insects, pests, clams, or mollusks.
Where can I learn more about opposing the initiative?
The Oregon Hunters Association has posted information on IP 28 and is organizing opposition to it.
If a measure this sweeping keeps coming back for a third time, is the real strategy to win the argument or just to wear voters down until they stop paying attention? Tell me where you land in the comments.
Full Episode Transcript
Read the full transcript of this episode
Tonight, a group is trying to ban hunting, fishing, even pest control in the state of Oregon, and they are gaining momentum to put that question on a ballot. >> David Michelson is the chief petitioner. 30% of Oregon agricultural sales are animal-related. 70% are crops. We can have 100% of those be crops if we wanted to. >> Restaurants and hunting organizations, meanwhile, are firing back saying the move could be detrimental to the state economy. >> Show Waxmith is a fourth-generation owner of Dan and Louis Oyster Bar in Old Town. We want to see this business continue and go. She says the restaurant has been struggling to stay afloat, relying on every seafood they can sell.
If you take all of that away, it would just devastate not just restaurants, not just grocery stores, but it hits the farmers. The Oregon Hunters Association says the economic impact could be far-reaching. >> It’s not only a way of life, it’s how a lot of folks feed their families. And at the end of the day, we’re not talking about tens of millions of dollars, we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars each year that contribute to the economy. >> An initiative that’s trying to basically outlaw the ability um to kill or injure an animal for any reason other than self-defense.
The group is called the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions or PEACE Act. The initiative criminalizes injuring or killing animals, including farming, ranching, hunting, fishing, and even pest control, among other categories. Now, the only exceptions are some veterinary practices and self-defense. >> When it comes to animal agriculture, shifting to plant agriculture, that is obviously a big thing. Shifting some farms potentially to animal sanctuaries. They want to make Oregon a sanctuary state. That’s their term for it. Um and what that would effectively do is it criminalizes hunting, fishing, trapping, wildlife management practices, uh education and teaching with animals, um all the way down to your ability to trap pests and vermin.
Trapping mice or rats in your home or in restaurants or hospitals, all of that would be criminalized if this were to to pass. The complete disregard and lack of common sense and self-serving individuals that are behind this is it’s [clears throat] really embarrassing that we’ve actually gotten to the point where they have 105,000 folks that have actually signed onto this petition. >> It’s really focused on taking the legs out of animal agriculture. So, there’s a section in this that would term common breeding practices like artificial insemination as sexual assault. So, they’re you know, you’re going to take the legs out of the ranching industry, the dairy industry, and those are huge economic drivers in our state as well.
So, this all of the ideas that are encompassed within this are bad, basically. This is literally what we’re working with. Controversial petition aims to ban hunting, fishing, and pest control in Oregon. And and this isn’t new. This is This has had a couple of go-arounds. This is like the third go-around for this ballot, this initiative ballot. I mean, it it is such a virtue signaling-driven I mean, we heard the bald guy, right? The bald guy is just crazy. You know what I mean? He’s like, “Oh, we can all just eat We can all just eat lettuce all of our lives.” And you know, just a bunch of nonsense.
The implications of something like this to the state of Oregon. I have hunted in Oregon. I have fished in Oregon. I have not killed any pests in Oregon that I remember. I do love animals. I think they’re delicious. Animals are here for us to use as a resource. Not using them makes the whole ecological system just go wacky. And so many of these animals that hunters hunt will arguably disappear because if you don’t have the conservation going on with the hunters, if all of a sudden it’s illegal to hunt all this stuff, there’s going to be no money from the licenses to fund all of the conservation, and the whole thing just goes absolutely sideways.
Let alone, I’m a real estate appraiser. Every now and then, you ask for a pest pest inspection on a home. If you know a home has a bunch of dry rot on it, uh it’s got uh you know, infestation of whatever. And you know, we’re no longer going to kill pests. Okay, so so then what do we do there? Right? How about commercial fishing in Oregon? My father-in-law, my ex-wife’s dad, was a commercial fisherman. His family’s commercial fisherman out of Warrenton, Oregon, outside of Astoria. You kill that industry, you kill hunting, you kill resident you know, recreational fishing. I mean, absolute hairbrained idea.
Right? Cuz there is no food source that is cleaner than, you know, scooping something up out of the ocean, or shooting something yourself, that just flew by. I shot a lot of ducks, I shot a lot of geese, you know, ate them. Um I went uh elk hunting in Ilwaco, which is across the river from Or- from Oregon and from Astoria. Never killed an elk, but saw some. And a great experience, phenomenal experience. So, a group is trying to ban hunting, fishing, and pest control in Oregon. Pest control. Pet- We’re talking about pest control. Pest contr- What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? You got a You got a pest absolutely destroying a home.
Ah, let’s just leave it, cuz you know, hurting the pest is bad. Group is called the People for the elimination of animal cruelty exemptions or peace. I would call this a piece of crap initiative. That’s what I would for refer to. It’s a piece of crap because it’s a bunch of people virtue signaling. Uh we we we we just don’t want to eat any meat. That that’s what we just love our pets so much. We just want to let them all just go. Mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. The Pacific Northwest is hell-bent on destroying itself internally. Inside out. Let’s just Let’s just kill everything. Let’s just tax everything to 10 ways from Sunday.
And and then we’ll just put in all these regulations. Let’s just outlaw everything. Let’s I mean, outlaw everything. Yeah, that’s what we’re That’s what we’re doing. Seattle’s trying to bring in the Sonics 2.0 cuz, you know, they left and went to Oklahoma City. They were taken there because Seattle didn’t want to play ball with the new arena. Well, now we got to do it arena. Now that we got a new arena, and we’re just dialed in for the new Sonics, Washington state’s going to bring in a millionaires tax. So, the our governor’s talking in the NBA commissioner, hey, however we can help you out here.
Don’t worry about that millionaires tax. It’s not going to not going to impact any anybody. New York has professional athletes, so does Los Angeles. They all play. They’ve got, you know, jock tax. They’ve got taxes like that. It’s got to be good. It’s got to be good. What Seattle is such a small market. And the impact that this kind of thing would have would be just uh hundreds and into the building billions in in lost revenue. What is the fishing industry, commercial fishing industry up and down the the Oregon coast? What does that bring in a year? It’s not small. The initiative criminalizes injuring or killing animals.
You know what? You’re going to have to do that. You need to have animal protein. Not having it, you end up like that bald frail guy. I think we can all just eat lettuce. Including killing for food, hunting, fishing, criminalizes breeding practices. Breeding practices. And thank you to the young lady who sent this um topic to me, and you were from a butcher shop. Thank you so much. I’ve seen this topic kicking around. I’m like, that is the most insane thing ever. And it is. It’s It’s absolutely nutty. It’s like You You want to do what? Exactly what? Let’s see. Hunting, fishing, pest control, breeding practices, I mean, do you know Eastern Oregon?
What would that do to Eastern Oregon with with all the ranches they have out there? You know what I mean? >> [laughter] >> More specifically, injuring or killing animals, including farming, ranching, hunting, fishing, trapping. Oh, yeah, I forgot trapping. No more trapping. No more trapping, guys. Pest control, research, teaching, criminalizes breeding practice would all be a crime. Illegal. That is absolutely nutty. And you know where a lot of the support is coming from? Yeah, it’s coming from What do we got here? California, New York, and Russia. I got a cheat sheet over here.
I’m looking at it. I wrote down some hand scribbles. Come in handy. It’s like, do I need to write that down? No, I can remember it. No, can’t. There are so many different and alternatives. 30% of Oregon agricultural sales are animal related. 70% are crops. We can have 100% of those be crops if we wanted to. Yeah, but we don’t want to. We don’t want to because that is a numbskull idea. That is a shenanigan-laden just absolute brain dead analysis. Oh, we just want to have vegetables. Good luck with that. Uh, you know what though? They’re going to they’re going to try and wear down Oregon. After a while, Oregon’s going to go, “You know what?
We we we shouldn’t be we shouldn’t be mean to the animals. Oh my god. Artificial insemination is rape.” It’s how we do it, right? It’s how we do it. They’re animals. They’re not human beings. Different different categories. And if you’re someone inclined to not kill bugs, pests, but rats? You’re just going to let the rat population just fester? Oh, it’s now illegal to kill a rat. Good luck with that downtown. Right? Next to the homeless encampment? Mickelson agrees that eliminating hunting and fishing licenses will remove funding from wildlife management, but argues that it would create job training fund for people who lose their livelihoods because of the initiative’s enactment.
Nonsense. That is such nonsense. You’re not The amount of money that you’re going to you’re going to take away from Oregon as a whole from this kind of thing is just shockingly ignorant from a reality standpoint. You are brain dead if you think that this wouldn’t have just a massive massive implication. This is one of those woke shenanigan type things that the left throws out there and and thinks, “Well, it’ll be okay. It’ll create job training fund for people who lose their livelihood because of the initiative’s enactment.” And then you’re like, “No, it’s going to decimate the economy.” You’ve already got a decimated economy.
You’ve already got a budget deficit. You’ve consistently got budget deficits in Oregon. Oregon, I mean, you’ve got some of the worst real estate investment uh, attractiveness in the country. You’re 80 out of 81 in Portland. You’re bottom of the barrel already. Are you just trying to push it further down? Just let’s get there. Let’s go straight to hell with this kind of initiative. When it comes to animal agriculture, shifting to plant agriculture, that is obviously a big thing. No, it’s not. No, we still need animals because like I said again, they’re delicious. Shifting some farms potentially to animal sanctuaries, no.
No, we’re No, we’re not going to do that. That’s absurd. That is stupid. You are stupid. Similar to how the OHSU primate research lab I don’t care about that. Currently in talks to transition their primate lab into a primate sanctuary. Research is a different different animal. See what I did there? That’s a different drill, right? Research, okay. All right. All right. You’re going to operate on the monkey without anesthesia. Okay, you know, whatever. But hunting out in the wild, there is no cleaner food source than killing something in the wild. There just isn’t. Cuz everything that you get from a farm, I mean, it’s got some kind of impact to it.
It’s got some kind of ecological impact to it. No matter how clean you try and try and make it, right? I think the same thing could be done for some animal farms as well. Yeah, well, that’s cuz you’re a He noted the initiative does not protect insects. Okay. Um >> [laughter] >> But pests, it does it doesn’t impact pests. The group says killing animals is Oh, it also doesn’t um it doesn’t impact, I think, like clams, mollusks. It doesn’t It doesn’t impact that subphylum or whatever they call that. I remember I took animal psychology in college. He was like, animal psychol- Do we care about the psychology of animals?
Animal psychology This is University of Washington. Right before it kind of went started started really going woke. Maybe it woke and I just didn’t know it in 1980. I graduated from high school in ’87, so it would have been ’87, ’88, ’89, ’90, somewhere right in there, right? Right before the grunge era. Yep. Group says killing animals is a choice. Yes, and we make it because they are delicious. And that is how the system is set up to work. And that the initiative prioritizes plants instead of killing animals. And then you ever you ever hung out with a vegan? Like a real hardcore vegan? They are the weakest people.
They’re just like, “Ah, I’m so frail.” Like you can just literally just, you know, push them over. They got nothing. They got nothing cuz they they’ve got no real protein running through their system. I’m sorry, protein from peas ain’t going to cut it. Give me some Give me some steak. Give me a good ribeye. And don’t make my steak illegal. That’s absurd. And argues that there is no reason to maintain the status quo. No, there is. There’s lots of reasons, and I’ve just named them. So, suck on it there, ding-dong. This is not the first time a group has tried to criminalize hunting and fishing. Unfortunately, it’s not.
I mean you just think to yourself, “What are you doing?” Now, you you’re trying to overlay your virtue signaling about your own life to the rest of society, and it would have massive implications that you don’t care about. You don’t care. You could care less. Because if you thought it through, you know, maybe in my personal life I don’t have to eat bison. I don’t have to eat chicken. I I I don’t really want to do that. But we’re just going to let the other people do their thing. We’re going to let them hunt. We’re going to let them fish. Bear is Oregon IP 28 would criminalize hunting, fishing, trapping, and farming.
So, if you type in oregonhunters.org, they’ve got all kinds of information on this issue that IP 28 would criminalize hunting, fishing, trapping, and farming. Join Oregon Hunters Association to fight IP 28. So, if you’re interested in doing that, that’s where you go to. I just Googled Oregon Hunters Association and came up with it. So, I wanted to plug that because anything fighting this is need that need this to go away. But, what I’m afraid of is that they’re just they’re just going to keep recycling this and eventually people are going to get beaten down and in Oregon, it’s all about virtue signaling, at least in the big cities, right?
Eastern Oregon, Southeastern Oregon, I mean, you are out in the heartland. You’re in high desert. You’re in high desert there and where hunting is awesome, fishing is amazing. Fish the Deschutes River. Plus, you’ve also got a lot of really good breweries. Yeah. Let’s not be picky. But, we think about hiking and bird watching and all these activities that all Oregonians support, many of them engage in. IP 28 strikes at the heart of this entire way of life. There is a way of life outside of Portland and it is huge and it is being threatened by ideology like this, which is just mentally twisted. So, we’re trying to warn everybody and educate everybody.
All right. We need to do whatever we can to help grow downtown again and taking away all meat is not going to do that, she said. That’s the lady with the seafood restaurant in downtown Oregon. Yeah. We need to do whatever we can help to grow downtown again. Taking away all meat. No, it’s not. That is not That’s That’s not going to help anything. So so far, it’s got 105,000 signatures since July of 2024. They need 117,000 to make it on the ballot. So, they’re getting close. They’re getting close. That’s the 2026 November ballot. They will be there for sure. I mean, but it’s it’s just pure insanity.
It’s just uh >> [laughter] >> You know, this is news for reasonable people. Let’s look at some of the comments here, right? For a minute, I thought I was reading the Babylon Bee. Right? I mean, this is a Babylon Bee complete satire. Somebody said, “PETA, people for ethical treatment of animals. People eating tasty animals.” I 100% agree. 100% agree. Typical short-sighted want to make the world nicer, lack of thinking, utterly blind to consequences. Yeah, and that’s that’s the that’s the thing. Just utterly blind to consequences. Tonight, I’ll be having a juicy a nice juicy steak for dinner.
Mm. Medium-rare red meat. Mm. Almost mooing. Mm. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Again, I love animals. I love animals. They’re tasty. They’re they’re they’re tasty. And they’re loaded with protein, and they’re a super clean protein source. They’re organic. You shoot one out of the sky, you pick out those Well, they’re not in lead anymore. It used to be lead shot, but then then we realized, “Ah, lead in the environment isn’t good.” So, they’re steel shot, right? So much better. Pick out the steel shot. Grill that bad boy up. I mean, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? Cuz they’re a resource.
They were put on Earth as a resource. We need to use them responsibly, which is what the whole conservation effort is all about. That you pay for with your hunting and fishing licenses. And you’ve got those game specialists out there. Oh, there’s 45 male elk. Well, we’re going to issue 28 permits. You know, however that whole thing works out, right? It’s all regulated. I mean, it’s not like this is just an absolute the purge free-for-all. Oh, let’s just all grab our rifles and go shoot something. Whole thing is just but that’s Oregon. That’s Oregon. I mean, I’m I’m I’m frankly shocked that or that Washington state isn’t joining in on this.
I mean, you know, you know what I mean? I mean, Northern California as well. Just but Oregon’s always got to go down this absolute wacky wacky woke virtue signaling just crazy shenanigan laden, you know, misguided adventure. And and then what they’ll realize that it’s it’s like proposition what was it? One measure 110, which decriminalized drugs. And then they saw a massive spike in drug overdoses. It’s like that, right? Oh. Oh. Oh, actions have consequences. Hm, haven’t learned that yet. Nor do they care cuz it’s all about the woke virtue signaling for them. Just think you’re tarded. Totally Thanks so much for being here.
I’d love to have you subscribe, hit that notification bell. I’ll see you on the next one. Bye for now. >> [music]
