
By Selwyn Duke
Got a rat problem on your property? Don’t worry, under Oregon’s new animal-rights act, you’d still be able to deal with it. You’d just have to eliminate the 20, 30, or 40 rats in your yard using live-catch traps. You can then deliver the rodents to, well, whoever’s itching to have dozens of pet wild rats.
Alternatively, you could use birth-control bait and wait up to two years for the rodents to pass away from old age.
No, this isn’t satire, but what is dictated by Oregon’s Initiative 28 (I-28), also known as the “Peace Act.” (I.e., People for Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions.) It would, writes its main sponsor, “extend the same legal protections our companion animals currently have to…other animals.” And, yes, this would disallow hunting and fishing — and more. As Ballotpedia relates:
(more…)









