NEWS OF THE WEEK:

DxE Rescues Lamb, Quail & Bunny, Hiker Saves Rooster & More, October 17- 24, 2017

By Leslie Goldberg

Direct Action Everywhere’s biggest news this week is a local CBS story of our open rescue from Saba Live Poultry, an Oakland butcher/slaughter house, where activists removed three animals on Sunday, October 22: a lamb, a quail and a bunny. Twenty-three activists were arrested on trespassing charges. They were given citations and immediately released. Some 200 people from all over the country participated in the action. The CBS segment was pretty good except it included false information saying that DxE had “broken into” and “stormed” this establishment which sells chickens, quail, goats, lambs, rabbits and, apparently, veal. The rescued lamb has now been named Edward, the quail is Mercy and the bunny is Jonah. (CBS, SF Bay Area, 10/23/2017)

CASSIE ROCKS IT

DxE activist Cassandra King disrupted a football game between UC-Berkeley and Washington State on October 13, running on to the field holding a stuffed toy pig. She was dragged off the field by police. She later wrote a wonderful essay which was published in Berkeleyside explaining why she did what she did, citing the rampant exploitation of animals raised for food and the absurd FBI search for two piglets rescued by DxE from a Smithfield farm. She called for Berkeley to become the “animal rights capital of the nation.”  (Seattle Times, 10/14/2017, Berkeleyside, 10/20/2017)

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HAS TO REVEAL DOCUMENTS ON ITS PRIMATE EXPERIMENTS.

An appeals courts struck down an earlier decision regarding the revelation of notes about the University of Wisconsin’s primate research. The court decided the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) had the right to see documents related to UW’s proposed experiments on maternal deprivation and social isolation in newborn macaques. The ALDF argued that the research amounted to “psychological torture.” The UW had actually already cancelled the experiments by the time of the appeals court verdict. They insisted that the animal rights group had “nothing to do with” their decision. Oh really?! (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10/19/2017)

YELLVILLE’S BRUTALLY CLUELESS “TURKEY TROT” UNDER INVESTIGATION

For 50 stupid years, airplane pilots have been dropping live turkeys from the sky in October at an annuual festival held in Yellville, Arkansas. They call it “The Turkey Trot.” Now the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) says they are going to investigate to see if this vile practice is in “compliance” with regulations. (Associated Press, 10/16/2017)

APPALACHIAN TRAIL RESCUE

This time the one in need of a rescue wasn’t a human hiker, it was a chicken hiker. Heather Bollnt, who had recently quit her job with The Humane League to complete a life-long dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail, came across an apparently abandoned “fancy rooster.” After doing a bit of a search for his “owner,” she scooped him up and managed to carry him 42 miles to safety. Having already hiked over 1,000 miles, Bollnt still has another 1,000 miles. “I always seem to end up rescuing animals,” she said. At first she named her hiking partner, Eddie, but later changed his name to Mason, since he was found about a half mile from the Mason-Dixon Line. (The Dodo, 10/13/2017, Today, 10/17/2017)