Breaking news and publications from Direct Action Everywhere.
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TOP PRESS
October 9, 2024
The Intercept
Videos shared with The Intercept prior to the report’s public release show, among other scenes, lambs with their throats slit hanging upside down and thrashing on the slaughter line; one animal with an internal organ that has been torn inside-out and left dangling behind it as it heads to slaughter; injured lambs being led to slaughter; workers laughing, spanking animals, and engaging in simulated sex acts with nearby machinery as lambs are having their throats slit; and the apparent use of so-called Judas sheep — adult sheep kept alive at the facility and used to lead the young sheep to slaughter.
TOP PRESS
October 9, 2024
The Intercept
PRESS
February 17, 2025
Countercurrents
In addressing Musk’s continued development of BCI’s, DxE organizer Carla Cabral said, “Elon Musk’s actions are a profound example of the link between animal and human cruelty. While animals such as monkeys and pigs are being tortured and killed for Musk’s financial gain, he’s actively spewing hate toward trans people, immigrant communities, and other marginalized groups. And the federal government has shown no willingness to hold Musk accountable..."
PRESS RELEASE
February 15, 2025
Protestors displayed a giant Elon Musk head with a speech bubble reading “I TORTURE MONKEYS.” With some activists dressed as monkeys inside cages, others held signs reading “Primates are not prototypes.” Several Bay Area residents, including a former animal experimenter, gave speeches condemning the cruelty and ineffectiveness of animal testing.
PRESS RELEASE
February 15, 2025
PRESS
February 3, 2025
The San Francisco Standard
Trader Joe’s is facing pressure to drop a North Bay chicken supplier after a social media post documenting its alleged abuses went viral with the help of celebrities and food influencers.
PRESS
February 3, 2025
The San Francisco Standard
PRESS RELEASE
February 2, 2025
On Saturday evening, animal rights activists disrupted the dinner service at the upscale restaurant Playa Mill Valley in Marin County, asking the restaurant to cut ties with Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry due to documented animal cruelty.
PRESS RELEASE
February 2, 2025
PRESS
January 30, 2025
Public News Service
An animal activist is speaking out ahead of her trial in May - accused of trespassing, theft and conspiracy after a protest at a poultry slaughterhouse in Northern California.
PRESS
January 30, 2025
Public News Service
PRESS RELEASE
January 29, 2025
Jason Arnold, Director of Operations for Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse, ignored activists’ requests for a meeting regarding documented criminal animal cruelty at the slaughterhouse
PRESS
January 9, 2025
The Isthmus
“Petitioners have shown that there is probable cause to believe that Ridglan has committed crimes under Wisconsin’s animal cruelty laws, and the district attorney has failed to issue a complaint or commence an investigation into Ridglan’s conduct,” the ruling states. “Based on the entirety of the record, the Court grants Petitioners’ Petition to appoint a special prosecutor.”
PRESS
January 9, 2025
The Isthmus
BLOG
December 29, 2024
The silver lining of repression is that it gives movements the opportunity to prove how strong they are. While the past year has been hard, I feel incredibly grateful for all of the ways the animal rights movement has grown and persevered.
PRESS RELEASE
December 14, 2024
Activists covered in fake blood lay down on a giant “plate” to bring attention to the violence behind serving dead animals as food during the holidays. Protestors also called on Safeway to cut ties with Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry, where undercover investigations have exposed sick and injured animals left without care.
PRESS RELEASE
December 14, 2024
TOP PRESS
October 10, 2024
Vox
In principle, there’s a lot of sense in capping the size of factory farms. Measure J’s proponents are betting that progressive Sonoma County, better known for its tasting rooms than its slaughterhouses, can push California — and the nation — in that direction.
TOP PRESS
October 9, 2024
The Intercept
Videos shared with The Intercept prior to the report’s public release show, among other scenes, lambs with their throats slit hanging upside down and thrashing on the slaughter line; one animal with an internal organ that has been torn inside-out and left dangling behind it as it heads to slaughter; injured lambs being led to slaughter; workers laughing, spanking animals, and engaging in simulated sex acts with nearby machinery as lambs are having their throats slit; and the apparent use of so-called Judas sheep — adult sheep kept alive at the facility and used to lead the young sheep to slaughter.
TOP PRESS
August 30, 2024
San Francisco Chronicle
In dimly lit indoor aisles at Weber Family Farms in Petaluma, hundreds of thousands of white chickens live out their 90 weeks of life. They fly from perch to perch. They dust bathe in the bedding. They nip at water dispensers. They lay egg after egg. And they never leave. These barns are at the heart of a bitter fight that Mike Weber and Samantha Faye are waging for the future of local farming.
TOP PRESS
April 4, 2024
Los Angeles Times
Lewis Bernier, an animal rights activist supporting the initiative, said he has visited several factory farms across the country, documenting inhumane treatment, and one farm in Sonoma County stands out as having “the worst and most systemic animal cruelty that I’ve ever seen.”
TOP PRESS
March 15, 2024
The New Yorker
Instead of planning actions, many activists now spend their time litigating microaggressions and small disputes within their ranks... As a response, [DxE co-founder Wayne] Hsiung has tried to promote a maxim of "braver spaces, not safer spaces," which encourages the animal rights community to put aside their individual concerns, if possible, and do things like risk felony jail time for the cause.
TOP PRESS
January 30, 2024
The Guardian
If successful in Berkeley, a liberal San Francisco Bay Area town that’s often been at the forefront of US environmental policy, the method can be replicated elsewhere, [activists] say. “We can pave the path to abolishing factory farming,” said Cassie King, an organizer with Direct Action Everywhere, one of the groups that pushed for the measure.
TOP PRESS
November 9, 2023
Vox
Hsiung’s trial and conviction show the extraordinary difficulty of trying to discuss what happens to animals on factory farms in a legal system that only sees them as property. At both factory farms in this case, DxE had documented gruesome conditions prior to their open rescue actions and had submitted animal cruelty complaints to authorities (though no action was taken by legal officials, King said). Yet it was the activists, not the farm owners, who were criminally charged and had to explain themselves to a jury.
TOP PRESS
November 8, 2023
Wired
For the first time, guerrilla animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere reveals a guide to its investigative tactics and toolkit, from spy cams to night vision and drones. Bernier says that DxE decided to publicly release its guide, even in the wake of Hsiung’s conviction, to help activists who are already committed to carrying out covert investigations do their work more safely and effectively.
TOP PRESS
November 4, 2023
The Intercept
Hsiung’s defense was in many ways stymied from the jump. The judge barred almost all photo and video evidence of animal cruelty from the trial, as has been the case in a number of previous DxE trials. As I’ve previously noted, the decision to disallow such evidence is usually made to benefit a defendant — not showing gruesome images of a murder victim, for example. Such logic has been flipped in DxE cases, including Hsiung’s most recent, to the benefit of powerful agribusiness.
BLOG
July 5, 2022
Our signs read “Expose Smithfield’s Deathstar” referring to Smithfield’s Circle Four Farms in Milford, Utah, the largest pig farm in the country. While many criticized the tackiness and absurdity of the action, it garnered much needed media attention.
BLOG
July 2, 2022
Here's what this could mean.
BLOG
June 25, 2022
The protest occurred after yet another horse was killed at the horse racing track that spans Berkeley and Albany.
BLOG
June 25, 2022
Senator Booker spoke about the need for nonviolent direct action and for "not being spectators in democracy!"
BLOG
June 14, 2022
As happy as I am to see Smithfield leave California, they should not be allowed to simply cut and run. They must adequately compensate their workers, provide appropriate care for their pigs, and clean up the damage done to the surrounding community and to the L.A. river.
BLOG
May 20, 2022
Over the last few decades, the Central Valley of California has become plagued by the crisis of dirty drinking water contaminated with nitrates. Latino communities have been disproportionately affected. In the heart of the valley lies Tulare County, a majority Latino district and the largest dairy producing county in the nation.
BLOG
May 5, 2022
This is a response to a recent study by Faunalytics regarding the impacts of protest on diet change.
BLOG
April 14, 2022
High profile sporting events pose a significant opportunity to get eyeballs on a topic– if one is bold enough to risk criminal charges and bodily harm. And it's a tactic that has been used throughout history.
BLOG
February 2, 2022
Tip #1: You need an organizational system that you understand and use every day.
PRESS RELEASE
January 26, 2023
More than 5,000 monkeys are confined at the center for use in research and breeding. Abusive methods cited by activists include the practice of withholding food and water until monkeys in research studies are so dehydrated they will perform tasks in order to be rewarded with minuscule amounts of food or water.
PRESS RELEASE
January 24, 2023
The footage shows pigs screaming, gasping, thrashing violently, and trying to escape as they descend into the pit of CO2 gas.
PRESS RELEASE
January 21, 2023
Saturday’s Bay Area demonstration was a nonviolent disruption of Sprouts Farmers Market, recreating DxE’s first-ever action but with a far larger assemblage than the seven activists who participated in 2013. As at the original action, activists delivered a slam poem describing how farm animals live and die while standing in the store’s “meat” section.
PRESS RELEASE
January 18, 2023
Investigator Raven Deerbrook recorded over 16 hours of footage from multiple angles, which shows pigs screaming, gasping, thrashing violently and trying to escape as they descend into the pit of CO2 gas. Former federal prosecutor Bonnie Klapper reviewed the video and determined that use of these devices on pigs violates federal law.
PRESS RELEASE
January 7, 2023
Activists installed images representing each horse who died in 2022 along the fence at I-80 and hung a 100-foot-long “Shut Down Golden Gate Fields” banner from the pedestrian bridge above I-80.
PRESS RELEASE
December 3, 2022
“Humans can consent to run and risk injury. The horses do not, and when they get injured and can’t run anymore, they are killed."
PRESS RELEASE
November 17, 2022
The investigation at Foster Farms found an E. coli-infected turkey chick, buckets of dead chicks, and a litter beetle infestation. Said former U.S. prosecutor Bonnie Klapper, "[The arrest] is an absurd action on the part of the Berkeley police and one which serves only to protect corporations engaged in animal cruelty from being held accountable by consumers.”
PRESS RELEASE
November 12, 2022
The two factory farm investigators who were found “not guilty” last month joined the protest.
PRESS RELEASE
November 10, 2022
Rescued turkey chick had an infection called omphalitis caused by E. coli.
