There is some really strange stuff going on these days in the world of anti-hunting and animal-rights activism. In Colorado there’s an active proposal to prohibit the sale of furs from furbearer species taken in the state (for example, furs from legally harvested bobcats, beavers, or coyotes). And this proposal has advanced through the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission even after voters opposed the measure in 2024.
In Oregon it gets even weirder. Animal-rights activists there are trying to ram through a ballot initiative (IP28) that would essentially ban the intentional killing or injury of any animal statewide. That means hunting, fishing, ranching, and basic depredation practices for wildlife management would all be banned — among countless other common practices like pest control. These activists have until July to collect enough petition signatures and it seems likely that the measure will end up on the 2026 voting ballot.
Fortunately, even if it does get on the ballot, pretty much no one expects it to pass. That includes even the folks who are pushing it forward. But I think that it’s important for all hunters and conservationists to understand this futuristic (and extreme) version of animal activism.
“Perhaps we can invest in the development and dissemination of cell-cultivated meat — meat made from cells rather than slaughtered animals — to reduce the amount of predation in the wild.”
—Brian Kateman, Reducetarian Foundation
So many people these days spend much more time online than they do out in nature. And I think as technology advances (our current obsessions with social media and artificial intelligence are two prime examples) some popular perspectives about where human beings belong in the natural world are only going to get more perverse. It seems that the common thread is something like this: In the future, humans will exist separate from nature as if we’re benevolent gods above it, not participants within it.
This is exemplified in two perspectives from animal rights activists. The first is from David Michelson, who is an organizer behind the Oregon initiative. He makes the following statement in a YouTube interview:
“We do hope long term that we can create an organization that can launch these [ballot initiatives] in multiple states that have ballot initiative processes. We know that this is unlikely to pass in 2026. No one on the campaign thinks that this will pass right now. But our goal is to create a base that can do this in Oregon in multiple election cycles in a row, that can do this in other states. So that in decades — it took the women’s suffrage movement forty to fifty years from the first ballot initiative to getting the 19th amendment — so it’s a long game …. The world will look so different by the time fifty percent of Oregonians don’t want to kill animals anymore.”
The second perspective comes from a February column published in the Los Angeles Times by Brian Kateman, who is a co-founder of a non-profit that’s dedicated to reducing consumption of animal products. Kateman writes:
“It’s worth looking into the high-level changes we can make to reduce animal suffering. Perhaps we can invest in the development and dissemination of cell-cultivated meat — meat made from cells rather than slaughtered animals — to reduce the amount of predation in the wild. Gene-drive technology might be able to make wildlife less likely to spread diseases such as the one afflicting the rabbits, or malaria. More research is needed to understand the world around us and our effect on it, but the most ethical thing to do is to work toward helping wild animals in a systemic way….. Helping wild animals is not only a moral opportunity, it is a responsibility, and it starts with seeing their suffering as something we can — and must — address.”
These ideas will seem absurd to anyone who hunts, but I don’t think they are as shocking to the general public as they should be. So in this episode of the Outdoor Life Podcast I’m talking to Dr. Robbie Kroger, who is the founder of the Origins Foundation. This organization is dedicated to uncovering and sharing the truth about the effects of hunting and the sustainable use of wildlife. They’ve done some incredible documentary work which is worth checking out here and here.
A Fine Balance – A Botswana Elephant Documentary
Kroger is an ecologist and I consider him to be a bit of a philosopher too. He’s looked into the impacts of hunting both internationally and here in the U.S. He’s also dug into the philosophy and perspectives of anti-hunting folks from all around the world.
Read Next: Online Retail Giant Bows to Activists by Banning Fur Sales. It’s Hurting Conservation and American Trappers
We have a wide ranging conversation that I think helps explain where some of these extreme anti-hunting sentiments come from and Kroger also offers up a much more practical future, where humans prioritize the sustainable harvest of wildlife in ways that both people and critters prosper.
Read the full article here
