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Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. There are long shots, really long shots. And then there's Initiative Petition 28. Basically, this petition, which is still in the signature-gathering phase, would almost completely ban the slaughter of animals in Oregon. No more hamburgers, no more venison, no more salmon. The petitioners want Oregonians to treat all animals the way we treat our pets, and they're actively soliciting signatures across the state. Today on the show, you'll hear from one of the initiative's leaders and hear why, despite the long odds, the symbolism of the petition is vital. Then in the second part of the show, we talk with a local documentarian who's produced a film about the famous McKenzie River drift boat that changed the way rivers and rapids have been run in Oregon and throughout the world. David Michelson, lead petitioner for Initiative Petition 28, welcome to the show. Thanks for talking with us.
David Michelson: Thanks for having me on.
Dunne: Why don't we start with this: just tell the audience what Initiative Petition 28 is and what it would do.
Michelson: It is a proposed ballot initiative for the November 2026 election cycle in Oregon that seeks to extend the same animal cruelty protections our dogs and cats have as companion animals to all animals statewide, including those on farms, in research labs and out in the wild. That would mean moving away from slaughtering animals, hunting and fishing animals, and testing on animals. Essentially, right now, our system is set up so that killing animals is effectively the default strategy for most concerns we have around animals, either when they're inconvenient or when we can meet our needs through killing them. We want to change that system, or at least propose a new system to voters. That's the goal for our campaign.
Dunne: What would that new system look like?
Michelson: It would look different for each individual, both on a personal level and also across individual industries. There are already non-lethal strategies for anything we can think of related to animals, whether that's research using non-lethal forms or non-animal methods entirely, things like growing human organs in labs or using human tissue. We also have what are called organs on chips. We have lots of advances that not only already work, but that we could continue to develop. For agriculture, about 13% of Oregon's overall gross sales product is agriculture, and of that, 30% is the sale of animals or their products while 70% is crops. We can make 100% of that crops if we choose to do so. That could look like transitioning chicken farms into mushroom farms, which is actually a pretty classic transition, or similarly transitioning pig farms into mushroom farms. The Guardian had an article about a transition that took place in Iowa not very long ago. We also have alternatives for wildlife management. IP 28 doesn't prohibit us from intervening in the world of animals, but it does take killing them off the table. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife as well as the USDA have both developed non-lethal forms of wildlife management. The USDA has researched things like sterilization and vaccines. If we view it as genuinely helpful or necessary, we can try to manage populations. For mice and rats in New York City, they've been doing something similar, switching out poison boxes with birth control boxes. We can choose to make a system, design a society and a set of laws that make it easier not to kill animals, that make the default to be not killing animals and instead relating to animals in a more compassionate way.
Dunne: It does sound like it would be a real long shot to pass this initiative. Do you feel there's a certain symbolic nature to this initiative versus an actual political-strategic one, or is it both?
Michelson: I would say it's both. We'll definitely acknowledge that it is unlikely 50% of Oregonians are ready in 2026 to stop killing animals. We will campaign for it, and it would be fantastic if our messaging is so compelling that we really can convince that many people. We also recognize that shifts like this take time, and our campaign is very much inspired by the women's suffrage movement, which used the ballot initiative strategy to get the right to vote in Oregon. They were only successful after six election cycles, having been voted down five times, and that wasn't unique to Oregon. It was about 53 years from the first ballot initiative attempt to when the 19th Amendment was ratified. Decades of advocacy and forcing the vote, and every single time, even when they were only getting around 20% of the vote in support, they still felt the conversations that came from that were consciousness-raising and that they were getting closer to shifting society in that direction. That's our goal as well. We do want it to pass. We designed it so that it could pass, and we also recognize that if it doesn't pass in this election cycle, we are still pushing forward and having that conversation.
Dunne: Might you look at a tiered strategy? To me, this initiative reads like something of an all-or-nothing approach. Would you consider something like an initiative that just centers on scientific research and the treatment of animals?
Michelson: Our campaign really wants people to talk about and hopefully start to recognize that all animals have these basic needs that we already extend to our companion animals. Most people would acknowledge that our companion animals have needs for play, for curiosity, for affection, for protection, for sustenance. We go to great lengths to meet those needs when they're our companions. But with other animals, we either choose to ignore that they have needs or decide that their needs don't matter enough, and that we can still choose to kill them. We want people to recognize that that is a choice and that we can make different choices. The reason why the initiative impacts so many animals is that we're trying to make that case explicit. If we focused on a narrower issue, it becomes more about that particular practice rather than animals having needs as a whole. We really want to get people to think about that in a broader sense and recognize all the individual implications that would come from it. So even though I think something like that could make changes in any one industry more likely, and we would certainly support efforts to do that, our campaign wants to hold this line and say these animals still have needs, we can choose to shift away from killing them. What do people need? What reassurances do people need? What questions do people have about how to make that happen? We're going to continue trying to hold that line as long as we can.
Dunne: Obviously, there are a lot of industries and a lot of jobs that rely on the killing of animals. What would you say to them?
Michelson: I would acknowledge that they would require a shift. Our goal as a campaign is to empathize with the needs that people are currently trying to meet by killing animals in some form. We understand that they're doing that either to meet needs of sustenance or economic stability or to participate in a particular cultural tradition. Those needs themselves are really important, and at the same time, we are very confident that we can find alternative strategies that still meet those individuals' needs. This initiative does create a transition fund to help pay for things like job retraining, income replacement and the transition itself of whole industries and occupations. It would also help increase food access, and it would be overseen by a large council of people who would be impacted by the initiative. We recognize that it would be a shift, and at the same time, we are confident that we can still get those needs met. There was even some research I was looking at, I believe in Latin America and the Caribbean, that showed as their industry started shifting more plant-based, it created more jobs. Something like 15 million more jobs beyond the ones that were lost in that transition. I actually think that we can be very creative in making sure everyone's needs are met, including the needs of the animals.
Dunne: Do you feel like the more people learn, especially with regard to things like factory farming and scientific research, the more their opinions about meat production and other things that currently require animals might change?
Michelson: I definitely think that as people learn more about what's happening to animals, their attitudes shift. What is hard is that our systems are set up so that those industries continue even when individuals don't want them to. What I like about our initiative is that we are putting it to voters and saying: Do we all want to shift at the same time or not? Because a lot of the time, especially with factory farming, the solution presented to people is to change their individual habits. I am a big fan of changing individual habits, and I support that. At the same time, it's very difficult to change large systems when you are working one person at a time. What the ballot initiative does is say, OK, we can actually take off our consumer hats and put on our civic citizen hats and vote for a shift so that we all do it together. I think that would actually be a much easier transition. And I do think that as people learn about things, their attitudes change, and that change is helpful.
Dunne: In your opinion, do you think Oregonians can both survive and thrive with a complete transition to a plant-based diet?
Michelson: I think we could thrive. I think a transition like that gives us a lot more opportunities than it does losses. I really do think it could be something we mobilize around and could end up benefiting us in more ways than just meeting our own need for compassion toward animals. I think there are other benefits that we would find as well.
Dunne: My last question for you, David: What's the next step? Where are you in the process, and how close are you to getting this initiative qualified for the ballot?
Michelson: Right now, we have collected a little over 100,000 signatures, and we have until July 2 to turn in everything that we have. That's the final deadline. We're very grateful that we are close, but we do still have a couple of months of hard work ahead of us.
Dunne: He's David Michelson, the lead petitioner for Initiative Petition 28. David, thank you so much for coming on and talking with us.
Michelson: Thank you for having me.
Dunne: "Oregon's Boat" is a new documentary about the famous and beloved McKenzie River drift boat. We talk with the director now. Randy Dersham, the director of the new documentary "Oregon's Boat," Randy, great to see you. Thanks. Good to see you today.
Randy Dersham: Thank you very much.
Dunne: For folks who don't know, we had a nice conversation over the weekend when you premiered it at the Art House, and people loved it. I want to start by having you talk about your love of the water and running rivers.
Dersham: Rivers are a very special thing. Once you've been on the water and spent time where it's moving and flowing, it's just such a connection with nature, but it's also literally going with the flow. It's a metaphor for life itself. It gets in the blood.
Dunne: You told the audience you've had some wild experiences. You've sunk a few boats. There have been some rapids in your career.
Dersham: I'm one of those fools who likes to know where the edge is. You look at things and say, I wonder if this can happen, I wonder if I can make that work. And sometimes you do, and sometimes you don't.
Dunne: For folks who haven't seen it yet, give us the 30,000-foot view of "Oregon's Boat."
Dersham: "Oregon's Boat" is the story of the evolution and influence of the McKenzie River drift boat. The McKenzie River drift boat evolved over a period of about 25 years here on the McKenzie River, from around the mid-1920s until 1948, when the major visible changes to the boat occurred. It all happened because people were out on the water every day. They were guides who were paid professionals, and they were making changes to the boat to make it better so that they could get to more water and take more people out on the river.
Dunne: A lot of people instantly have a picture in their mind of what a McKenzie River drift boat looks like, especially those like yourself who've spent a life on the water. But some haven't seen one. Give a quick description of what the boat is today, so that if people are driving around or happen to go down to the McKenzie, they'll know what one looks like.
Dersham: The McKenzie River drift boat is a cross between a dory and a skiff. People who know boats will recognize that dories have points on both ends while skiffs have wide, flat bottoms, and the drift boat has both. It's sort of banana-shaped, with a wide, flat bottom for stability. It has rocker from end to end so that it matches the shape of a wave, and for the most part, a point on both ends. It can go either end down the river, with the exception of a very small transom on the bow that's there to allow attachment of a motor, anchor systems or other helpful things.
Dunne: When you were thinking about this project, what was it that hooked you? What made you think this is interesting to me and would be interesting to a wider audience?
Dersham: There's a wide group of people in the Northwest that, when they get into a drift boat and experience it, it just hits you right in the heart. It feels like you're on the river, interacting with it rather than against it. It's a different experience than most people expect when they first get in. I've had clients who look at it and go, "We're going in this?" And then they get on the water, go through their first rapid, and say, "Well, that wasn't what I expected."
Dunne: I believe you had a nice quote in the movie where someone described it as a bathtub with oars.
Dersham: Bathtub with oarlocks. That was the first John West boat. It was very short and very wide. He did make some changes that made it not tremendously sightly, but it was efficient, and it evolved from that into what is now a very beautiful boat.
Dunne: What I loved about the movie, and we had a chance to talk about this, is that it's a documentary about the history of this craft, but it's also a technology story, an innovation story. You're looking at old boats and old black-and-white footage, but this is tremendous innovation on the river, isn't it?
Dersham: It really is. Whitewater was feared by pioneers. It was the thing you avoided. Why would you risk your life or your possessions going through whitewater for fun? That changed around 1920 in many places throughout the United States and the world because technologically, things were moving. Here in Oregon, we had the advancement of plywood. Plywood made with waterproof glues became publicly available in the mid- to late 1930s. Even before that, there were adventurers who said, I wonder if I can, taking boats through rapids like Martin Rapids on the McKenzie and learning how to manage that water, then starting to alter their boats to make it more manageable. The most traditional method when you came to a rapid was to get out, attach ropes and line your boat through the whitewater, then get back in and continue in the safer water. With these shorter, wider, more stable boats, they learned that you didn't have to take all that time, you didn't have to portage all your gear. Just get in the water, run the rapid, and by golly, it was a lot of fun.
Dunne: The movie also talks about the fact that the McKenzie drift boat didn't just prove its mettle here in Oregon. It went to the Colorado River and other difficult places in Idaho to run rapids. And it did great. Talk about that.
Dersham: The first thing that really changed the evolution of the boat was the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. It's much more technical water than the McKenzie. The boat that had been built and designed by Tom Kaarhus had been altered and took John West's bathtub-with-oarlocks concept and made it a true performance machine for the McKenzie River. It had a fairly wide, square stern that went downriver first. It looked like you were rowing the boat backwards, but it was able to hold two fishermen, and the guides loved that. When they got into more technical water, the big curling, tall wave water, that flat end would stop you. There were challenges on the Middle Fork they needed to overcome. It was Woody Hindman, here in Eugene, who later opened a boat shop in Springfield, who put a big, tall downriver prow, a point on that end of the boat, in 1940 and '41, and it just changed the look of the boat forever.
Dunne: Many people listening have probably been in a McKenzie River drift boat, but some haven't. I'd love for you to describe what it's like, both in the tranquil sense and also running some rapids and getting your adrenaline up.
Dersham: I like to describe it as a dance with a dance partner. It's you and the river. You've got the big waves, and your boat is built to match and fit those waves. As long as you're in step with each other, it's a really good thing. If you get out of step with each other, it becomes more collision-oriented. You can get knocked by waves in one direction or another if you're either out of time or out of sync with what's happening on the water.
Dunne: Randy Dersham, who made it, who's the director. Randy, thank you so much for talking with us.
Dersham: Thank you for having me.
Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon on the Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, the deadliest avalanche in California history just occurred, and we'll hear from local experts about the causes of avalanches and ways to keep safe in the backcountry. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon on the Record. Thanks for listening.
