On July 24, it was determined that a proposed ballot initiative disingenuously titled “People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions” Act (also referred to as IP28) failed to garner enough signatures to advance to the November ballot in the state of Oregon.
As has been covered extensively, the bill would have outlawed hunting, fishing, trapping, and cattle ranching, among other extremely common and traditional activities.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I do want to call attention to one specific fact about this whole situation that is not receiving the coverage that it should. The real devil is in the details.
104,262.
That is the verified amount of people who actually signed this petition. That is how many people would summarily burn to the ground a century of progress of science-based wildlife and habitat conservation, as well as animal husbandry. In Oregon, of all places.
If this many people will go out of their way to sign a petition, consider about how many more will blithely check a box on a ballot.
As a side note, it also includes some specific language that is pretty effin’ (trying to keep this PG-rated) weird, including “classifying both the masturbation and insemination of animals as sexual assault even when done for agricultural purposes.”
Senator Christine Drazan said that “[t]he people behind IP28 will be back, and so will the next extremists with another extreme idea.” It’s unfortunate, then, that I have to point out the obvious — if over 100,000 people support this bill, it’s no longer a fringe, loony moonshot. It is a clear and present danger to the future of wildlife management and habitat, as well as the funding used to preserve both of those things. It will also be used as a Trojan horse to extend development ( specifically utility and data center-related development) into these wild areas.
It also begs the question: are bills like these the actual problem, or are they but one symptom of the fallen body politic that tacitly entertains proposals of these kind?
Extreme, this initiative most definitely is. Outside today’s Overton Window of politics, it most definitely is not. This is not the Mayberry America that our parents grew up with; we are engaged in a slow-burning, cultural Cold War against dark money from deep pockets, bot farms, misinformation, and foreign influence working against the interests of our countrymen.
What happens in one state will happen in others, as the shadowy cabal of “charitable foundations” and foreign donors behind IP28 also prop these efforts wherever they can. This is especially effective in states that are mostly rural, with large population centers that do not share the same values as the rest of the state (translation: every major Western state).
As conservation-minded sportsmen who want the best for our land and game animals, it behooves us to put out these fires whenever and wherever they crop up. Even if this one isn’t in your back yard… the next one might be. The only ironclad protection against lunacy of this type is to codify the right to hunt and fish in the state’s constitution as 24 states have already done. Otherwise, we will continue to swat these flies as they come up. I’ll also note that these flies come from the left and right, as Utah’s Mike Lee has so enthusiastically demonstrated.
Now, more than ever, those of us who engage in consumptive outdoor recreation need to be as loud as the other side, proactive, articulate, and effective in our approach to combating these myriad policy initiatives worming their way into state legislatures. HOWL for Wildlife and Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management are leading the charge in modernizing the conservation movement in this way.
It was sportsmen who stepped up for our wildlife in the late 19th Century and brought many species back from the brink of extinction. Good times breed weak men; we enjoy record numbers of game in many parts of the country, and many take this for granted. With unprecedented political threats from utility-scale solar development, data centers, water issues, and anti-hunting bills, it is up to us to carry the touch lit by the progenitors of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and resist these outside agitators vehemently and with unwavering unity.
