Hunt 2 Conserve strongly opposes IP 28 and urges Oregon’s residents to reject it. 

What is IP 28?

Oregon Initiative Petition 28 (IP 28) is an effort by radical animal rights activists to place a misleading initiative on the November  2026 ballot that would make it a crime to hunt, fish, trap or raise livestock. Under the guise of “ending animal cruelty” and titled the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions Act, the initiative criminalizes injuring or intentionally killing animals, utilizing breeding practices and raising and/or killing livestock for food. By translation, that would make it illegal to hunt, fish, trap or engage in farming or ranching activities. It even prohibits pest control.

Why is it so dangerous?

If passed, IP 28 would:

• End proven wildlife management as spelled out in the North American Wildlife Conservation Model and its front-line management tools of hunting, fishing and trapping
• Severely harm conservation and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) mission to protect and enhance the state’s fish and wildlife and their habitats
• Cut roughly 40 percent of ODFW’s budget, which is generated from hunting and fishing licenses and fees used to manage all wildlife, not just hunted species
• Negate millions of dollars used for conservation, recreation and public access projects generated by excise taxes on guns, ammunition, archery equipment and fishing gear via the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson Acts  
• Drastically impact Oregon’s fish populations since the millions spent on fisheries and fish hatcheries would be cut off
• Threaten the food security of Oregon’s citizens by making it against the law for farmers and ranchers to raise cattle, hogs, sheep and goats, poultry and fish for food
• End livestock ranching by transitioning farms and ranches into “animal sanctuaries”
• Threaten the food security of Oregon’s citizens by making it illegal for hunters and anglers to acquire their own meat
• Frustrate restaurants and food service businesses, homeowners and pet owners, private property rights, recreational and working animal industries, and coastal communities and Tribal nations that rely on hunting and fishing operations
• Outlaw animal research and education
• End common pest control, including trapping mice and vermin
• Redefine common breeding practices for dogs, cats, horses and cattle
• Significantly harm or reduce youth programs such as 4-H and Future Farmers of America

How many signatures does the initiative need?

117,173 verified signatures are required to qualify the issue for the ballot. As of December 29, 2025, proponents officially gathered 92,088 signatures, although those signatures are yet to be verified. In social media posts, activists claim they surpassed 100,000 signatures.

When will we know if this qualifies for the 2026 ballot?

The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office will make a final decision by July 2, 2026.

Who is behind IP 28?

Out-of-state activist organizations power the campaign, according to AGPROfessionals.  PETA, Direction Action Everywhere and the Karuna Foundation, among others, are offering financial support and the campaign has received donations from individuals and organizations as far away as Europe and Russia. The measure has also been embraced by local and regional activists. David Michelson, a well-known animal rights extremist from Portland with a belief in animal liberation, is the campaign spokesman. Proponents tried and failed in 2022 and 2024 to place similar initiatives on the ballot and publicly stated they will keep trying year after year until successful.

Pro-IP 28 extremists are currently housing professional signature gatherers that “do not need to be registered to vote” and are paying them $25 per hour.

Is it really possible that this initiative becomes law?

If it qualifies for the ballot, yes! Once on the ballot, anything can happen as the proponent campaign will feature emotion-laced rhetoric and propaganda with a target on everyday Oregonians not educated on the issue.

Also, “radical” is nothing new to Oregon ballot-box policy making. In 2020, citizens passed Ballot Measure 110 which reduced criminal penalties for possession of hard drugs including heroin, LSD, methamphetamine, oxycodone and PCP. Drug overdoses and related quality of life and public health problems skyrocketed, leading to lawmakers amending and repealing the measure in 2024. Now, as of September 2024, the penalty for possessing hard drugs changed to a misdemeanor with a six-month jail term that can be waived if those convicted enter mandatory drug treatment.

If I do not live in Oregon, why should I care about this?

According to proponents, “Once successful in Oregon, we hope to bring similar initiatives to every state until the killing of animals is against the law nationwide.”

About Hunt 2 Conserve

Hunt 2 Conserve is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Its mission is to advance a legacy of hunting and conservation by educating, activating and developing stewards and defenders of these fundamentally American ideals. For more information, go to hunt2conserve.org.

Hunt 2 Conserve strongly opposes IP 28 and urges Oregon’s residents to reject it.

It’s a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black. The spokesman for a highly extreme yet still potential Oregon ballot initiative freely admits it is “radical” in nature.

Oregon Initiative Petition 28 (IP 28) seeks to not only legally ban hunting, fishing, trapping, farming and ranching but make it a crime for anyone taking part in those activities. Proponents are currently gathering signatures with hopes to place the issue on the November 2026 ballot.

“Given the radical nature of the campaign, we’re aware that it is almost certainly not going to pass in 2026. Despite that, we believe getting it on the ballot now will make it more likely to pass in a future election cycle, and that it will help us build the organization we’d need to keep getting it on the ballot,” David Michelson told Current Affairs magazine.

Michelson is a well-known animal rights extremist from Portland who initially proposed IP 13 in 2022, a similar initiative that was abandoned due to a lack of support. Among other things, IP 13 sought to criminalize hunting, fishing, farming, animal husbandry and giving all animal owners and veterinarians a criminal record. Michelson labeled those activities and professions as acts of violence.

With IP 13’s failure, he then shifted his focus to the 2024 ballot with IP 3. Once again and yet despite an influx of out-of-state donations from extremist organizations, the regurgitated measure did not gain momentum or gather enough signatures.

“Numerous rights and freedoms have been won through the ballot initiative process,” Michelson told The Oregonian.

It is with that mindset that Michelson and IP 28 proponents eye the ballot initiative process as an end-around to circumvent current law by bypassing state lawmakers, as per his comment of “it is almost certainly not going to pass.”

However, that statement is deceptive. The fact is that history shows radical initiatives can and do pass and only become law after first qualifying for and appearing on the ballot. Michelson and his proponents know that. National examples include steep increases in minimum wage, gun control, abortion and anti-abortion measures, banning or reinstating the death penalty, physician-assisted suicide, tax hikes, sin taxes and reducing criminal penalties. In Oregon, voters passed a 2020 ballot initiative that reduced penalties for those convicted of possessing hard drugs. Today, perpetrators and hardened criminals can avoid and discard prison sentences if they enter drug counseling.

Colorado is another recent example. Extremists tried to pass an anti-wildlife management bill to ban the hunting and trapping of mountain lions and bobcats in 2022. A new coalition at the time called the Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project, of which the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is a member, gathered support, provided testimony and a legislative committee rejected it. Extremists then tried to circumvent lawmakers by taking the ballot initiative route. In 2024, they gathered enough signatures to place a measure on the ballot. In addition to banning the hunting of mountain lions and bobcats, it also sought to ban hunting lynx. Again, this was deceptive in nature as it was already illegal, and remains illegal to this day, to hunt lynx in the Lower 48. Thanks to an educational campaign that included warnings about the dangers of ballot-box biology, including more than $340,000 contributed by RMEF, voters overwhelmingly defeated the measure by more than a quarter of a million votes.

Four years earlier, also in Colorado, extremists used the ballot initiative process combined with emotion and a lack of education to gather enough signatures to qualify a measure to forcibly introduce wolves into the state. Colorado Parks and Wildlife examined the issue over several decades and issued findings four different times that doing so would not be a good idea and would frustrate wildlife management. Pre-election polling and predictions said the measure would easily pass by receiving 80 percent of the vote. RMEF supplied more than $300,000 and combined its resources with other partners as part of a statewide educational campaign. Unfortunately, the measure passed by less than two percent, and the program has faced serious issues and livestock depredations since implementation.

Circling back to IP 28, the dangers of passing this initiative which would destroy wildlife management and the health of Oregon’s fish and wildlife populations are very real. Banning hunting and fishing would mean the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, with its duty to manage fish and wildlife populations, would lose 40 percent of its budget that comes from hunting and fishing licenses. It would also negate millions of dollars earmarked for conservation in Oregon by losing the excise taxes on guns, ammunition, archery equipment and fishing gear that Oregon receives. Banning hunting and fishing would trigger food insecurity by ending opportunities for hunters and anglers to acquire meat to feed their families.

Looking at the bigger picture, IP 28 would instigate a larger statewide food insecurity concern by making it against the law for farmers and ranchers to raise livestock and poultry for food, especially for those who rely on meat as part of their day-to-day nutritional needs. Proponents glaze over the issue by saying, “Oregon is a top-ranking producer of many field and seed crops, fruits, nuts and vegetables, and IP28 could end up increasing our net agricultural production, depending on how the industry adapts.”

In fact, by seeking to end ranching and farming, IP 28 proponents would force such operations to leave the state or transform into economically qustionable “alternative” farms.

“Some of the most talked about transitions have been helping turn chicken farms into mushroom farms. Growing these types of organizations would be instrumental in transitioning away from killing animals for food,” Michelson told Current Affairs magazine.

IP 28 would also outlaw animal research and education, ban pest control and remove the ability for residents to protect themselves.

"For research, we can use human tissues and cells, organs-on-chips and computer models. For wildlife protection, we could use the introduction of sterile males or birth control,” Michelson old Current Affairs magazine. “Our campaign doesn’t have a prescribed alternative that we think works best in every situation, but we do think that by recognizing animals as individuals with needs that we are committed to protecting, then we’ll be able to find or create alternatives together.”

Click here for a Q&A about IP 28.

About Hunt 2 Conserve

Hunt 2 Conserve is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Its mission is to advance a legacy of hunting and conservation by educating, activating and developing stewards and defenders of these fundamentally American ideals. For more information, go to hunt2conserve.org.

Below is a news release from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). Hunt 2 Conserve supports rescinding the blanket rule.

PERC and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) applaud the Fish and Wildlife Service’s (Service) proposal to rescind the “blanket rule” that arbitrarily regulates endangered and threatened species the same and ignores the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA) text, science, species’ unique needs, and recovery progress. For those reasons, PERC and RMEF filed a lawsuit challenging the previous administration’s adoption of the blanket rule.

In July, President Trump directed the Service, and other federal agencies, to “recover America’s fish and wildlife populations through proactive, voluntary, on-the-ground conservation efforts.” Rescinding the blanket rule is a vital and necessary step toward fulfilling that policy. The blanket rule arbitrarily prohibits proactive, voluntary conservation, including habitat restoration. And, in doing so, it discourages species recovery. Tailored rules, however, remove roadblocks for proactive conservation efforts, including prescribed fire, forest thinning, and stream restoration.

The blanket rule also ignores science and the important role of state wildlife agencies. Under it, the Service never assesses how to best promote the recovery of most species, despite the ESA requiring this analysis for every threatened species. Instead, it imposes an illegal and arbitrary one-size-fits-all approach that Congress rejected when it limited Section 9 to endangered species. Instead, Congress intended states to take a greater role in recovering and managing threatened species. Yet the blanket rule, without explanation, deprives states of the flexibility needed to fill that role.

Finally, as the Service explained in 2019, and reaffirmed in 2024, developing tailored rules for each threatened species “incentivize[s] conservation for both endangered and threatened species.” The blanket rule, by treating endangered and threatened species the same, removes this incentive by denying states and landowners any reward for recovery progress.

Click here to read the public comment.

About Hunt 2 Conserve

Hunt 2 Conserve is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Its mission is to advance a legacy of hunting and conservation by educating, activating and developing stewards and defenders of these fundamentally American ideals. For more information, go to hunt2conserve.org.

(Photo credit: Kirk Stovall/Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)

Below is an updated portion of a September/October 2021 Bugle magazine article titled “Equal Access to Injustice.”

Stolen Identities

What is particularly vexing, and especially perplexing for the general public, is the hijacking of the word conservation by environmental groups. The Center for Biological Diversity, for one, refers to itself as “a national, nonprofit conservation organization.” Others do the same, although hats off to the Sierra Club for identifying itself as what it really is – a “grassroots environmental organization.” Some media outlets further the confusion by referring to environmental groups as conservation groups.

Merriam-Webster defines conservation as “planned management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction or neglect.” Cited examples include water conservation and wildlife conservation. In other words, conservation is the hands-on stewardship of natural resources such as habitat enhancement and permanent protection of vital migration corridors and winter ranges.

Environmentalism, on the other hand, again according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “a political and social movement focused on the preservation” of the natural environment. Preservation often refers to a hands-off approach or preventing any type of management activity.

There are swaths of designated wilderness and other backcountry areas that remain relatively untouched for very good reason. However, there are millions of acres of public forests that are overly dense with heavy fuel loads and downed deadfall due to decades of fire suppression. These overgrown forests throttle the growth of grasses and forbs vital for elk and big game and other wildlife, and are susceptible to disease, beetle kill and an elevated risk of catastrophic wildfire that can decimate an ecosystem.

What True Conservation Looks Like

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s mission is to ensure the future of elk, other wildlife, their habitat and our hunting heritage. RMEF does so by working collaboratively with federal and state agencies as well as other partners to provide both funding and volunteer manpower to carry out prescribed burning, forest thinning, noxious weed treatments, repairing or constructing wildlife water developments, fertilizations, planting seedlings and other actions to maintain or improve habitat.

RMEF also provides grant funding for wildlife management, scientific research and predator management, and advocates for its mission. Additionally, RMEF seeks to protect and open public access to elk winter and summer range, migration corridors and calving grounds via land acquisitions, access agreements and easements, conservation easements, land donations and other means. RMEF also has a history of successfully reestablishing elk in historic ranges where habitat and cultural tolerance create a high potential for self-sustaining wild, free-ranging herds.

Just one small but impactful example of planned management or conservation: RMEF provided other funding for an ongoing series of projects to create and enhance forage openings and water sources for elk and other wildlife in Virginia’s Elk Restoration Zone. This important habitat enhancement work benefits Virginia’s growing elk herd, which was restored to its historic range by the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) and RMEF in 2012. Because of projects designed to improve elk habitat like this one, DWR then introduced a special elk hunting license that led to Virginia’s first managed elk hunt in more than a century, one that generated vital funding to benefit elk herds and habitat for a rich variety of other wildlife.

Any objective look at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s lifetime conservation accomplishments shows the immense impact the organization has had on elk, other wildlife and habitat. As of January 1, 2025, RMEF conserved or enhanced more than 7.6 million acres of wildlife habitat and protected 1.5 million acres of land. That amounts to more than 9.1 million acres of combined conservation work. On top of that, RMEF played a pivotal role in restoring wild, free-ranging elk to Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Ontario. and RMEF has invested millions of dollars to help fund wildlife research key to delivering the most effective management. All that adds up to a lot of work and a lot of conservation.

About Hunt 2 Conserve

Hunt 2 Conserve is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Its mission is to advance a legacy of hunting and conservation by educating, activating and developing stewards and defenders of these fundamentally American ideals. For more information, go to hunt2conserve.org.

(Photo credit: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)

Forests need to be managed, which improves their health and better protects both the water supply and the ability to produce energy. That was the message when the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources hosted a Jan. 8, 2026, hearing on Capitol Hill.

“A century of fire suppression and decades of mismanagement have created a perfect storm of overstocked, unhealthy and fire-prone national forests, resulting in a destabilized water supply and negative impacts on our ability to provide power across the West,” said Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY). “The Fix Our Forests Act addresses many of these challenges facing utilities by equipping forest managers with the tools to restore forest health, improving reliable water supplies and protecting our power infrastructure rate payers.”

Hageman cited a study in the Sierra Nevada range that shows active forest management increases downstream flows by 9 percent and other data indicating that 46.3 percent of the nation’s water supply originates on national forest system lands. Since the House passed the Fix Our Forests Act nearly one year earlier, she urged her colleagues in the Senate to follow suit. Expert testimony agreed.

“Our forests are dynamic systems that demand active management. When we fail to manage the fuels, we pay the price in blackouts, oil, water, lost hydro power and sky rocketing insurance cost,” said Randy Howard, general manager of Northern California Power Agency.

Howard spelled out major bureaucratic challenges for utilities. Hazardous trees outside of utility corridors require months or years of federal approvals for removal, even when they impose an immediate safety risk. He also cited the need for streamlining permitting and using categorial exclusions under federal law and highlighted how post-fire sediment and debris choke reservoirs that people depend on for water quality and to generate hydropower.

“The cost of reacting to wildfire is unsustainable. However, recent studies have shown that every $1 invested in proactive fuels treatment saves an average of $7. The proactive investments needed to build resilience to wildfire are a fraction of the costs the U.S. is currently incurring from wildfire,” said Madeline McDonald, watershed scientist at Denver Water, a utility that serves 1.5 million residents.

“A single catastrophic wildfire can simultaneously threaten both our water supply and our power generation. As such, our infrastructure encompasses far more than just pipelines and power lines,” said Travis Deal, CEO of Colorado Springs Utilities. “It includes these landscapes themselves that rely on the federal partnerships that we have developed to manage these critical forested landscapes. For too long, federal forests have been neglected, and many of our forests are in critical need of attention.”

Research shows active forest management in the form of prescribed burning, thinning and other treatments improves the health of forestland, enhances wildlife habitat and helps mitigate the possibility of high intensity wildfires.

Hunt 2 Conserve and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation are staunch supporters and advocate of the Fix Our Forests Act, and call on the Senate to pass it.

About Hunt 2 Conserve

Hunt 2 Conserve is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Its mission is to advance a legacy of hunting and conservation by educating, activating and developing stewards and defenders of these fundamentally American ideals. For more information, go to hunt2conserve.org.

(Photo credit: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)

(Photo credit: Neal Herbert/NPS)

This article appears in the September/October 2021 of Bugle Magazine with lower portions updated at a later date.

Congress created the Equal Access to Justice Act to give everyday Americans a fair shot. But it’s been hijacked into a lawsuit factory where environmental groups fuel their agendas with taxpayer money.

When the federal government listed grizzly bears as threatened in the Lower 48 under the newly minted Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1975, an estimated 136 grizzlies remained in the nearly 6-million-acre Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Since female grizzlies don’t reproduce until they’re at least four years old and only have litters of two to three cubs every three years or so, extinction loomed as a real possibility. Over time, though, those protections worked.

By 2007, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) scientists estimated the GYE population had quadrupled to more than 500 bears and expanded its range by more than 50 percent. This exceeded all of the federal recovery criteria and the USFWS removed the Yellowstone grizzly population from threatened status. In short, the ESA functioned exactly as it was designed.

Of course, the story didn’t end there. Environmentalists immediately sued, citing uncertainty regarding food sources. A judge agreed and returned them to fully protected status.

Subsequent research showed that the bears adapted well, overcame the perceived food challenges and continued to grow in numbers and range. In 2017, citing an estimated population of 750 bears and further expansion of occupied range—again exceeding all delisting criteria—he Department of Interior removed grizzlies’ threatened species status once more, returning management of the great bears to the three state wildlife agencies in the Greater Yellowstone.

Once again, a slew of environmental groups took their arguments to court. In 2018, a federal judge cited technicalities and ordered the population be relisted again. The federal government and states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming intervened on behalf of delisting, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation filed a brief in support of delisting to the Ninth Circuit of Appeals. However, the court upheld the relisting decision in July 2020. In April 2021, biologists from both the USFWS and Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee revised the estimated grizzly population in the GYE to upwards of 1,000 bears. That’s almost a tenfold increase from where the population stood when they were listed as threatened 46 years ago.

The delist-relist ping-pong is frustrating enough. But here’s one more especially galling detail: you’re paying for it.

Citing the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) in that most recent round of litigation, environmental groups filed requests to be reimbursed for “reasonable” attorney fees up to $460 an hour. A few of those groups include the Alliance for Wild Rockies, Center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society of the United States, Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians. The total combined ask amounted to more than $1.4 million in taxpayer money.

“The really unfortunate thing is when these groups win, the Department of Justice negotiates the fees, but it’s the individual agency that must pay. So, in this case, it would impact the budgets of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but in other cases it could be the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management or another federal agency,” said Blake Henning, RMEF chief conservation officer. “All of those agencies are already underfunded, and this just hurts them more, which means they don’t have staff to adequately review issues, which leads to more and more lawsuits. It’s become what amounts to a ridiculous, non-stop merry-go-round ride.”

Looting Agency Funding

Imagine discovering someone is picking your pocket without you even knowing about it. That scenario has played out time and time again in federal courts across the United States. It’s a ploy successfully utilized by environmental groups that take advantage of the Equal Access to Justice Act. A measure created four decades ago to serve and benefit everyday Americans has been transformed into something far different.

To gain a better understanding of the EAJA, we must examine its roots. In the 1950s, Americans demanded governmental action for better stewardship of our nation’s air, land and water. One of the first key pieces of legislation to result was the Air Pollution Control Act (1955) followed by the Clean Air Act (1963). The Water Quality Act came two years later, holding states responsible to meet standards for water in their rivers, lakes and streams, including those waterways that flowed beyond their borders. The Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965) amended the Clean Air Act and set standards for vehicle emissions. In 1966, the Endangered Species Preservation Act created regulations to protect fish and wildlife species in danger of extinction.

The 1970s saw the creation of the National Environmental Policy Act (1970), a requirement that federal agencies prepare an environmental impact statement for any action or legislation that could adversely affect land, water or wildlife. Later that same year, an executive order from President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an independent executive federal agency with a mission to protect human health and the environment. Building on previous legislation, the Clean Water Act (1972) sought to further reduce and eliminate pollution in our nation’s waters, while the Endangered Species Act (1973) focused on protecting crucial ecosystems for imperiled wildlife, fish and plant species.

Those actions helped set the table for Congress to enact the Equal Access to Justice Act in 1980. It authorized the payment of “reasonable expenses of expert witnesses, the reasonable cost of any study, analysis, engineering report, test or project which is found by the agency to be necessary for the preparation of the party’s case, and reasonable attorney or agent fees” to a party that wins a civil lawsuit against a federal agency by successfully demonstrating a threat of injury or irreparable harm.

“EAJA was passed primarily in response to demands from the small business community, which was laboring under the increased environmental, consumer and health and safety regulations of the 1960s and 1970s,” said Lowell E. Baier, an attorney in Washington, D.C., and the author of the 2015 book Inside the Equal Access to Justice Act: Environmental Litigation and the Crippling Battle Over America’s Lands, Endangered Species and Critical Habitats. “The concern was that when an agency such as OSHA or the EPA improperly fined a small business, the small business might win in court but be bankrupted by having to pay its lawyers.”

Baier points out that EAJA also applies to veterans seeking benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as well as the Social Security Administration (SSA). In fact, the vast majority of people garnering funds from the EAJA have been veteran or senior citizen beneficiaries suing the SSA or VA. Their awards average just a few thousand dollars each. But those payouts make a real difference for people who have no other remedy to receive the benefits they deserve. As a result, EAJA remains a critically important law for the everyday American.

According to Baier, the intent behind the law has not changed much over the 41 years since its passage, but the nature of its use certainly has. The EAJA included a cap on the net worth of any person or company that may benefit from it to make sure it serves real needs. However, in the final stages of establishing the EAJA, a last-minute amendment opened the door for nonprofit organizations to use it regardless of their net worth. This distinction grew murkier after 1995, when Congress eliminated a provision requiring annual reports of expenditures under EAJA. This opened the door for environmental groups to receive EAJA awards without the public ever realizing it.

“That set up a situation where environmental groups worth hundreds of millions of dollars could have their legal fees covered in cases where they used procedural laws like the National Environmental Policy Act to delay government projects they opposed for philosophical or political reasons. And in most cases, the money would be paid to the environmental group in a lump sum as part of a settlement agreement, with little if any oversight by the court, and then just disappear,” said Baier. “In theory, the law has a cap on fees, but that can be waived for lawyers with special expertise, such as in environmental law, when they’re paid market rates. We’ve documented numerous cases where payments were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even over a million dollars in some cases.”

Beginning in 2012, a bipartisan Congressional effort required the Department of Interior to disclose EAJA payments, and the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act of 2019 permanently restored EAJA reporting throughout the entire federal government. Baier says this greatly reduced litigation from many organizations because they did not believe the negative publicity was worth the money. He also quoted Justice Louis Brandies who said, “Sunlight is the best of disinfectants.” Still, such litigation does persist—with some groups continuing to thrive on it.

Sue, Brag, Profit

Not only do litigant groups generate money from attorney fees but they then use that financial windfall to bankroll large marketing campaigns to solicit more donations based on court cases.

“Environmental groups use the ESA, and challenges to decisions under the ESA, as incredibly effective fundraising tools,” said Pat Crank, former Wyoming attorney general and vice president of the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, while testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in 2020. “They challenge any delisting of the GYE grizzly for reasons that ignore the amazing success story of the GYE bear recovery. Every challenge leads to millions of dollars pouring into their coffers.”

It’s a cycle that has repeated itself year after year. In 2012, a report compiled by the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee used data from the Department of Justice to show that the federal government defended more than 570 ESA-related lawsuits over a four-year period (2009-2012) which cost American taxpayers more than $15 million in attorney fees. This occurred during a window when all of the environmental groups mentioned above were especially active, including several that filed multiple lawsuits seeking to stop the state management of wolves in the northern Rockies.

“According to the Department of Justice, some attorneys were reimbursed up to $500 an hour and two lawyers each received more than $2 million in attorney fees from ESA cases,” the report stated. “This data provides further evidence that the ESA has become litigation driven, where money and resources are spent addressing endless, frivolous lawsuits instead of species recovery.”
 
Conservation Doesn’t Happen in Courtrooms

Late in the 20th century and continuing into the 2000s, many Americans frowned upon environmental organizations due to their litigation-heavy reputation. So, many of those same environmental groups consciously shied away from the terms environmentalism or environmentalist and replaced them with conservation and conservationist. Among the more notable offenders are the Alliance for the Wild Rockies (no attorney list on its website), Center for Biological Diversity (46 attorneys), Defenders of Wildlife (8-10 attorneys), Earthjustice (143 attorneys), Humane Society of the United States (“dozens” of attorneys), Sierra Club (legal staff of 104) and WildEarth Guardians (legal staff of 15). It comes as no surprise that these seven groups filed almost half of the more than 570 lawsuits in the 2012 report.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) based in Tucson, Arizona, topped the 2012 report’s list of “most litigious organizations” with 117 ESA-related lawsuits. CBD now proudly boasts a “Trump Tracker,” a listing of all 266 environmental lawsuits it filed against the U.S. government during the 1,461-day Trump administration. That equates to one new legal action filed every 5.5 days!

In one suit filed on June 27, 2019, CBD called on the federal government to forcibly introduce grizzlies into Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Proposed release locations include the Grand Canyon, California’s Sierra Nevada and Montana’s Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem where there are already more than 1,000 grizzlies. On December 16, 2020, CBD filed lawsuit #255 to force grizzlies into the Cascade Mountains of Washington, even after the Department of Interior previously hosted numerous public meetings and received overwhelming local feedback against such action.

The transition to the Biden administration has not slowed this machine. In fact, it has accelerated. As of April 7, 2021, CBD publicly proclaimed it filed 43 lawsuits against the federal government—an average of one new legal action every 1.8 days!

To get an overarching picture of what is happening, the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency that develops recommendations to improve administrative process and procedure, found 15 federal agencies paid more than $58 million in awards of attorney’s fees and other expenses under EAJA during Fiscal Year 2019. Again, that $58 million comes out of the pockets of America’s taxpayers.

A Clear Case of Stonewalling

(Photo credit: National Forest Service)

Dating back to 2010, the U.S. Forest Service started conducting studies to formulate a plan for a future habitat enhancement project on the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest in west-central Montana. Called the Stonewall Vegetation Project, the goal was to treat unnaturally dense stands, reduce fire hazard, create forest resiliency and enhance wildlife habitat while improving overall forest health. Locals formed a collaborative group several years later that included government representatives, conservationists, lumber companies and other interested participants.

Relying on science, the collaborative agreed to a series of treatments to address thousands of acres of beetle-killed lodgepole stands to help reach project goals. RMEF was and remains extensively involved in the immediate area, having completed more than two dozen habitat enhancement projects over the last 15 years ranging from forest thinning to prescribed burns and other treatments that enhance wildlife habitat.

Two anti-management environmental groups, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council, did not participate in the collaborative effort but instead waited for it to end and then cited the ESA to file a lawsuit against the Forest Service claiming forest management activity would endanger Canada lynx and grizzly bear populations. RMEF sought to join its collaborative partners by writing a brief in support of the project. However, a federal judge agreed with environmental groups and issued a preliminary injunction on May 30, 2017.

Halting the project before it began, the judge stated, “The Court acknowledges that Defendants have presented evidence that the Project area is susceptible to severe and intense wildfires due to elevated fuel levels caused by ‘heavy accumulations of dead and down timber.’ However, though there is the possibility of serious fire activity within the boundaries of the Project, there is no indication that this area is at risk of imminent fire activity.”

Mother Nature had other ideas. In July of 2017, lightning sparked what became known as the Park Creek Fire. Fueled by dead timber, the 18,000-acre wildfire scorched the project area, closing national forest lands and triggering evacuation orders. The Forest Service decided to go back to the drawing board to reassess the impacts of the wildfire on the project, effectively halting the suit.

Three years later, a Forest Service budget report showed the litigating environmental groups in the Stonewall case exploited the Equal Access to Justice Act to receive $100,500 in attorney fees. Specifically, the three lawyers involved in that case requested fees at rates of $290, $355 and $390 per hour. That same report also showed environmental groups, as a whole, received more than $9 million in attorney fees and settlement awards between 2011 and 2018, often at the expense of forests, wildlife, communities and American taxpayers.

The Forest Service revised the Stonewall project in 2019 and issued both a supplemental environmental impact statement and record of decision, but the same two environmental groups filed yet another lawsuit, this time in December 2020.

Is that conservation? Or is it equal access to injustice? And where do we go from here? The original intent of the EAJA was unquestionably sound, as were the reforms delivered under the Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act of 2019. The great majority of the people who benefit from EAJA do indeed receive justice and are fully deserving.

What needs to change is the cynical niche industry fueled by litigation that reaps windfalls from taxpayers picking up their attorney’s fees, then makes even more through fundraising campaigns bragging about that success. In the end, there are suers and doers. RMEF is proud to stand squarely in the second camp.

What is particularly vexing, and especially perplexing for the general public, is the hijacking of the word conservation by environmental groups. The Center for Biological Diversity, for one, refers to itself as “a national, nonprofit conservation organization.” Others do the same, although hats off to the Sierra Club for identifying itself as what it really is – a “grassroots environmental organization.” Some media outlets further the confusion by referring to environmental groups as conservation groups.

Merriam-Webster defines conservation as “planned management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction or neglect.” Cited examples include water conservation and wildlife conservation. In other words, conservation is the hands-on stewardship of natural resources such as habitat enhancement and permanent protection of vital migration corridors and winter ranges.

Environmentalism, on the other hand, again according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “a political and social movement focused on the preservation” of the natural environment. Preservation often refers to a hands-off approach or preventing any type of management activity.

There are swaths of designated wilderness and other backcountry areas that remain relatively untouched for very good reason. However, there are millions of acres of public forests that are overly dense with heavy fuel loads and downed deadfall due to decades of fire suppression. These overgrown forests throttle the growth of grasses and forbs vital for elk and big game and other wildlife, and are susceptible to disease, beetle kill and an elevated risk of catastrophic wildfire that can decimate an ecosystem.

What True Conservation Looks Like

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s mission is to ensure the future of elk, other wildlife, their habitat and our hunting heritage. RMEF does so by working collaboratively with federal and state agencies as well as other partners to provide both funding and volunteer manpower to carry out prescribed burning, forest thinning, noxious weed treatments, repairing or constructing wildlife water developments, fertilizations, planting seedlings and other actions to maintain or improve habitat.

RMEF also provides grant funding for wildlife management, scientific research and predator management, and advocates for its mission. Additionally, RMEF seeks to protect and open public access to elk winter and summer range, migration corridors and calving grounds via land acquisitions, access agreements and easements, conservation easements, land donations and other means. RMEF also has a history of successfully reestablishing elk in historic ranges where habitat and cultural tolerance create a high potential for self-sustaining wild, free-ranging herds.

Just one small but impactful example of planned management or conservation: RMEF provided other funding for an ongoing series of projects to create and enhance forage openings and water sources for elk and other wildlife in Virginia’s Elk Restoration Zone. This important habitat enhancement work benefits Virginia’s growing elk herd, which was restored to its historic range by the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) and RMEF in 2012. Because of projects designed to improve elk habitat like this one, DWR then introduced a special elk hunting license that led to Virginia’s first managed elk hunt in more than a century, one that generated vital funding to benefit elk herds and habitat for a rich variety of other wildlife.

Any objective look at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s lifetime conservation accomplishments shows the immense impact the organization has had on elk, other wildlife and habitat. As of January 1, 2025, RMEF conserved or enhanced more than 7.6 million acres of wildlife habitat and protected 1.5 million acres of land. That amounts to more than 9.1 million acres of combined conservation work. On top of that, RMEF played a pivotal role in restoring wild, free-ranging elk to Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Ontario. and RMEF has invested millions of dollars to help fund wildlife research key to delivering the most effective management. All that adds up to a lot of work and a lot of conservation.

About Hunt 2 Conserve

Hunt 2 Conserve is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Its mission is to advance a legacy of hunting and conservation by educating, activating and developing stewards and defenders of these fundamentally American ideals. For more information, go to hunt2conserve.org.

Below is a portion of a President’s Message by Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation President & CEO Kyle Weaver in the 2025 September/October issue of Bugle magazine that announced the establishment of Hunt 2 Conserve.

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, RMEF is legally constrained in our political activities. For example, our status limits the money we can spend on lobbying. Some issues are too big to address as a 501(c)(3). With that in mind, in 2025 RMEF launched a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, called Hunt 2 Conserve, which will stand as a separate entity and use separate funding. RMEF will help steer the organization as a voting member. Through our partnership with Hunt 2 Conserve, we will expand our advocacy to have an even stronger voice on policy related to elk, other big game and their habitat. This is especially helpful with our work surrounding ballot initiatives. The creation of Hunt 2 Conserve accomplishes two specific things for our future. First, it provides an organization that can engage fully in the political spectrum to protect our hunting heritage and public lands. Second, it protects the future of our 501(c)(3) status by removing risks associated with lobbying by RMEF.

RMEF’s approach to advocacy focuses on building long-term relationships that help us work together to create solutions, so that we can promote public- and private-land conservation, maintain access, conserve habitat and keep our hunting traditions flourishing for generations to come. We thank each one of you for supporting this vital work.

About Hunt 2 Conserve

Hunt 2 Conserve is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Its mission is to advance a legacy of hunting and conservation by educating, activating and developing stewards and defenders of these fundamentally American ideals. For more information, go to hunt2conserve.org.

By a vote of 211-204, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would delist gray wolves in the Lower 48. The Pet and Livestock Protection Act, supported by Hunt 2 Conserve and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, would restore management authority to state wildlife agencies.

“We salute House membership for agreeing with scientists and wildlife management professionals that wolf populations are stable and growing and should return to state management,” said Blake Henning, RMEF chief conservation officer. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisted wolves in the Lower 48 states twice in the last decade and a half – during the Obama administration in 2011 and the Trump administration in 2020. Both times, judges intervened to invalidate the process.” 

Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) sponsored the legislation. It will not change any statutes but instead implements a rule issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2020.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) introduced a companion bill in the Senate, which requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

“State wildlife agencies sustainably manage thousands of species without federal interference, and several states in the Northern Rockies are successfully managing wolves because Congress took action to protect their delisting from activist judges,” said Henning. “We thank Representatives Tiffany and Boebert for sponsoring this legislation. RMEF calls on the Senate to follow suit and pass the bill.”

(Photo credit: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)

Hunt 2 Conserve is in favor of reforming the Equal Access to Justice Act.

Two dozen congressional staffers who focus on natural resources and judiciary issues gathered a mere half mile from Capitol Hill to learn and represent the offices of their elected representatives. Regina Lennox, senior litigation counsel for Safari Club International (SCI) and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Director of Government Affairs Ryan Bronson, who accepted an invitation to SCI’s advocacy headquarters, served as presenters.

The topic was the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), a measure enacted by Congress 45 years earlier. Much of the information presented came from a book by attorney and Boone and Crockett member Lowell Baier titled, “Inside the Equal Access to Justice Act, Environmental Litigation and the Crippling Battle over America’s Lands, Endangered Species, and Critical Habitats,” in addition to the RMEF Bugle magazine article “Equal Access to Injustice.”

"The Equal Access to Justice Act was enacted with good intentions to give small businesses and individuals the ability to fight an unresponsive government in court,” said Bronson. “However, by letting well-funded and litigious environmental organizations get their lawyers’ fees paid, the incentive to file suits and delay important habitat management projects has only grown. Litigation is now one of the biggest barriers to wildlife habitat improvement on federal lands." 

EAJA authorizes attorney fees to individuals and businesses that win cases against the U.S. Government, but eligibility requirements apply to individuals ($2 million net worth) and businesses ($7 million net worth). On the other hand, there are no requirements applied to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. As a result, large and well-funded litigant environmental organizations are getting paid with the taxpayer money to sue taxpayer-funded agencies to stop habitat management projects important to elk, mule deer, moose, bears and a plethora of other wildlife, bird and fish species.

From 1995 to 2019, there were no prerequisites to report what agencies paid in EAJA settlements. That ended in 2019 when the sportsmen-led Dingell Act created a database to track awards. Since then, environmental groups received $19,354,912.61 in taxpayer dollars from the agencies that oversee fish and wildlife habitat and management, specifically the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Interior and Department of Commerce.

In two past U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service efforts to delist grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, plaintiffs used technicalities to receive payouts of more than $1 million in taxpayer funds, including one attorney fee rate of $460 per hour.

Bronson, Lennox and others have proposed several congressional solutions to rectify the abuse:

• Make nonprofits consistent with other businesses or individuals and exempt large, well-funded organizations from receiving EAJA payments
• Restrict sue-and-settle agreements in law by codifying past secretarial orders
• Cap payments any entity can receive in a year to $100,000 or three awards to stop rewarding serial litigation
• Require that there actually be damages for an award to be made, stop paying fees for technicalities or delays that do not substantively change projects
• Create stronger vetting requirements for courts to make EAJA awards rather than giving judges full discretion

About Hunt 2 Conserve

Hunt 2 Conserve is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Its mission is to advance a legacy of hunting and conservation by educating, activating and developing stewards and defenders of these fundamentally American ideals. For more information, go to hunt2conserve.org.

(Photo credit: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)