You did it! The landmark 1.25% for Wildlife initiative is now law! Dedicated funding for Oregon fish, widlife, and habitat is secrued.
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Huge news as Governor Tina Kotek has signed the 1.25% for Wildlife bill into law, marking a huge win for Oregon’s fish, wildlife, and habitat — and putting a successful punctuation mark on this long-running effort to secure a dedicated funding stream for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s heretefore unfunded Wildlife Action Plan.
While the initiative finally made it through the legislative process after coming close last year, we owe a great deal of thanks to everyone who took a moment to send a note to their Oregon legislators along the way, both this year and last year — THANK YOU. This success is YOUR victory for our our fish, wildlife, and special Oregon habitats.
Background on 1.25% for Wildlife
At WaterWatch, our work is focused on protecting and restoring the streamflows that power our state’s world-class rivers and streams, which in turn provide vital habitat, foraging grounds, and migratory corridors for a variety of fish and wildlife including salmon, steelhead, beavers, otters, bears, and all varieties of insects, frogs, birds, and many other species.
But with ongoing federal assaults on our nation’s conservation pillars, likely rollbacks to the federal Endangered Species Act in Congress and by the Trump administration’s lack of enforcement, the threat of renewed large-scale logging in Oregon, and fish and wildlife pushed to the brink by habitat loss, climate change, and overdevelopment, over 300 at-risk species and their habitats have been in decline in Oregon and are in danger of being pushed further toward extinction.
While Oregonians have long counted on the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) to manage the state’s habitat and species, the agency has never received dedicated funds to fully implement its recovery and conservation strategies. To fill that funding gap, a coalition of 70 organizations came together over the last year to build bipartisan support and pass the 1.25% for Wildlife bill, which was designated HB 4134 during the 2026 legislative session and passed on March 4th. Governor Kotek signed it into law on April 10th.
This landmark wildlife and habitat conservation policy will provide a dedicated funding mechanism to be managed by ODFW to ensure preservation and recovery programs for Oregon fish, wildlife, and habitats via a small 1.25% increase to Oregon’s tourism lodging tax — which will still be one of the lowest in the nation even as the new law is now enacted.
We couldn’t be more thrilled with HB 4134 at the 1.25% for Wildlife initiative becoming law, but it’s not just us that’s happy — check out our gallery of happy Oregon fish and wildlife at our WaterWatch Instagram and Facebook accounts as we celebrate this monumental win.
WaterWatch flyer designed by Monet Hampson.
