Governor Kate Brown today signed House Bill 4046, which increases penalties for poaching (good), but also signed House Bill 4040, which "ratifies" the decision by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to remove gray wolves from the protections of Oregon's endangered species law (bad). We weighed in on both bills with written and oral testimony before legislative committees - supporting House Bill 4046 and opposing House Bill 4040. We also encouraged you to contract your elected officials about these bills. Thank you if you did that! Even though the wolf bill passed (mostly because it was caught up in a larger political battle), elected officials got the message that Oregonian's care about animals. In signing the bills, Gov. Brown released this statement.
For more information about these bills, please see our prior posts. For a good analysis of the politics that lead to passage of the wolf bill, see this editorial in the Eugene Weekly. For Oregon Live's coverage of Governor Brown's decision, see this article.