The ballot initiative to ban hunting and fishing in Oregon will not be placed in front of voters this November, as those promoting it failed to gather enough certified signatures.
Breitbart News has been following the initiative, officially designated the Oregon Initiative Petition 28 (IP 28), throughout this year and on May 26 noted that it had unofficially reached the signature threshold to appear in November.
However, after it was given to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Elections Division it turned out to be more than 10,000 certified signatures shy of the number needed to get it on the ballot.
A May 25, 2026, column from KATU made clear that IP 28 was designed to “make it illegal to injure or kill animals and would effectively ban hunting, fishing and the breeding of animals.”
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) pointed out, “It gathered just 104,262 valid signatures, well below the threshold requirement of 117,173 required signatures.”
NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane commented on the failed initiative, saying, “This radical anti-hunting plan was clearly, and correctly, rejected by Oregonians who wanted no part of this attack on the heritage of outdoorsmanship and proven conservation efforts that managed hunting requires.”
He continued, “The proposal would have, without question, destroyed Oregon’s rural communities, outdoor economy and abundant wildlife. Hunters are the original wildlife conservationists and are crucial to sustained propagation of managed wildlife for future generations,” Keane explained. “Oregonians are correct to reject this short-sighted and politically-driven agenda that would have annihilated over a century’s work to restore wildlife across Oregon’s landscape.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.