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Delays Continue in Criminal Case of Animal Activists Accused of Taking Chickens from Petaluma Poultry Farms

November 15, 2022

The Press Democrat

They argue that their efforts to rescue chickens are authorized under California’s animal cruelty law.

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PRESS

Delays Continue in Criminal Case of Animal Activists Accused of Taking Chickens from Petaluma Poultry Farms

November 15, 2022

The Press Democrat

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PRESS RELEASE

After Acquittal for Smithfield Foods, Whistleblowers and Activists Protest Costco’s Continued Sale of Smithfield Pork

November 12, 2022

The two factory farm investigators who were found “not guilty” last month joined the protest.

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PRESS RELEASE

After Acquittal for Smithfield Foods, Whistleblowers and Activists Protest Costco’s Continued Sale of Smithfield Pork

November 12, 2022

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PRESS RELEASE

Investigation Finds Sick Turkey Chicks among Litter Beetle- and Larvae-Infested Corpses at Foster Farms

November 10, 2022

Rescued turkey chick had an infection called omphalitis caused by E. coli.

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PRESS RELEASE

Investigation Finds Sick Turkey Chicks among Litter Beetle- and Larvae-Infested Corpses at Foster Farms

November 10, 2022

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BLOG

Three Lessons from the Smithfield Trial

November 7, 2022

Do your homework, get feedback, and find the simple story.

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BLOG

Three Lessons from the Smithfield Trial

November 7, 2022

Do your homework, get feedback, and find the simple story.

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PRESS

Activists March Through Downtown Orlando Demanding Justice for Animals

November 3, 2022

West Orlando News

With plant-based food companies on the rise, fur bans increasing in number, and animal welfare regulations growing stricter in many states, to say that a sort of societal evolution is taking place would not be a far reach.

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PRESS

Activists March Through Downtown Orlando Demanding Justice for Animals

November 3, 2022

West Orlando News

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TOP PRESS

What Is an Animal’s Life Worth?

October 25, 2022

Vox

The pigs’ essentially zero value is baked into the meat industry’s business model... 15 percent of piglets die before they’re finished weaning. The pork industry may slaughter over 125 million pigs a year, but they breed far more, knowing many will die from disease and injury.

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TOP PRESS

What Is an Animal’s Life Worth?

October 25, 2022

Vox

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TOP PRESS

I Did Not Steal Two Piglets. I Saved Them. A Jury Agreed.

October 18, 2022

New York Times

During the closing statements in the trial, in which I represented myself, I told jurors that a not-guilty verdict would encourage corporations to treat animals under their care with more compassion and make governments more open to animal cruelty complaints.

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TOP PRESS

I Did Not Steal Two Piglets. I Saved Them. A Jury Agreed.

October 18, 2022

New York Times

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PRESS

FBI Defeated in Historic Victory for Animal Rights Activists

October 11, 2022

Breaking Points

Krystal and Saagar take a detailed look at how animal rights activists won against the FBI in a landmark trial.

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PRESS

FBI Defeated in Historic Victory for Animal Rights Activists

October 11, 2022

Breaking Points

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TOP PRESS

Right to Rescue: Jury Acquits Animal Rights Activists Who Saved Piglets at Smithfield Factory Farm

October 11, 2022

Democracy Now!

In a major victory for animal rights, a jury in Utah has acquitted two animal rights activists who each faced up to five and a half years of prison time for rescuing two sick piglets from Smithfield’s Circle Four Farms, one of the world’s largest pig farms.

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TOP PRESS

Right to Rescue: Jury Acquits Animal Rights Activists Who Saved Piglets at Smithfield Factory Farm

October 11, 2022

Democracy Now!

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Our Top Press Hits

TOP PRESS

Activists Call It Rescue. Farms Call It Stealing. What Is ‘Open Rescue’?

August 7, 2023

National Geographic

These crusaders are part of the so-called “open rescue” movement, in which animal rights activists brazenly take animals from factory farm operations. Direct Action Everywhere—better known as DxE—is at the forefront of this movement in the United States...

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TOP PRESS

Dangerous Pathogens and Cruelty Law Violations at Perdue Subsidiary, Animal Rights Report Alleges

June 13, 2023

The Intercept

In conjunction with the release of an undercover investigation on the factory farm, the group DxE mounted an “open rescue” of birds from a slaughterhouse.

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TOP PRESS

Opinion: Utah Undermined the Jury System to Shield Big Ag from Scrutiny

March 30, 2023

Salt Lake Tribune

If government agencies were taking these [investigative] reports seriously and protecting animals from cruelty, there would be no need for bills like this. But certain Utah legislators have decided that the real problem with sick, suffering animals is the potential for negative publicity for the industry and so it is the industry, not the animals, that need protection.

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TOP PRESS

The Fight Against Factory Farming Is Winning Criminal Trials

March 21, 2023

Vox

DxE’s theory — that when you show a jury of ordinary citizens what happens to animals in the meat industry, they’ll agree that they deserve rescue — turned out to be true, challenging the idea that the animal rights agenda is radical or unpopular.

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TOP PRESS

Former TV Star, Now a Chicken ‘Rescuer,’ Found Not Guilty of Foster Farms Theft

March 20, 2023

LA Times

“This is a victory for [the chickens] Ethan, Jax, and all other living beings subjected to abuse by corporations like Foster Farms,” Santurio said in a news release from Direct Action Everywhere. “I have so much love for the chickens in my family and I want all animals to experience that safety and respect.”

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TOP PRESS

‘Baywatch’s’ Alexandra Paul on Trial; Video Shows ‘Open Rescue’ of Foster Farms Chickens

March 9, 2023

LA Times

“We published this video within an hour with both my name and Alicia Santurio’s name attached to it because we believe what we’re doing is legal and morally right,” Paul said in an interview with The Times.

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TOP PRESS

Opinion: Rescuing Farm Animals from Cruelty Should Be Legal

February 14, 2023

New York Times

In any context other than factory farming, treating animals the way we see chickens treated in the Foster Farms slaughterhouse videos would be considered blatant cruelty. Many would also consider it cruel to stand by while someone else handled animals this way. “If there’s someone in my neighborhood watching me boil birds alive, we’d say this is monstrous behavior,” Wayne Hsiung, a founder of DxE, told me.

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TOP PRESS

I Snuck into a California Slaughterhouse to Film How They Kill Pigs. It Was Horrifying

February 9, 2023

San Francisco Chronicle

The message the pigs conveyed in the gas chamber footage is clear: They are in extreme pain, and they want to live. You don’t need the Agriculture Department to tell you that. You can see and hear it for yourself.

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TOP PRESS

Opinion: Spy Cams Show What the Pork Industry Tries to Hide

February 2, 2023

New York Times

“It was horrible cruelty to the pigs inside the chambers,” Jim Reynolds told me. “It’s a violation of federal law.” Reynolds is one of 90 veterinarians who signed an open letter saying that the process shown in the videos probably violates federal law on humane slaughter.

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DxE's Blog

BLOG

Believing Is the First Step to Animal Liberation

September 10, 2024

If people do not believe that they can change a situation, they will never act to do so. If we do not believe that animal liberation is possible and that we can make it happen, it never will. In fact, animal agriculture and other unjust systems rely on our hopelessness and cynicism.

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BLOG

Ten Things You Need to Know About the Company Trying to Put Me in Prison

April 29, 2024

My findings show that “No Antibiotics Ever” just means that the chickens are still experiencing severe infection but they aren’t receiving the medication they desperately need. In one barn at a Petaluma Poultry factory farm in Santa Rosa, more than 10% of the chickens died by the time they reached 5 weeks. That is more than double the accepted industry mortality rate.

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BLOG

Newcomer's Perspective

December 26, 2023

The Sonoma County Court's actions didn't stop me but, instead, spurred me to further action just as it did for many others.

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BLOG

I’m Facing over 20 Years in Prison for Rescuing Animals, But I Am Not Afraid

December 2, 2023

Whether I lose my freedom for days, weeks, months, or even years, it is worth it to give even one or two animals a chance to experience freedom for the first time in their entire lives.

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BLOG

A Baby Chicken Taught Me to Never Give Up Hope. His Name is Vincent.

October 1, 2023

To everyone who doesn’t believe in a better world, I understand. I feel your pain and I know how hard it is to keep going in a world as painful as ours. But, just a glimmer of hope saved Vincent’s life and it might just save the rest of the animals, too. So please, don’t give up.

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BLOG

This Disabled Duck is at the Center of a Felony Case. His Name is Bruce.

August 30, 2023

If you saw a little duckling on his back, paddling his legs and struggling to get back up, what would you do? Would you keep walking? Or would you help him? 

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BLOG

Exposing Petaluma Poultry

July 1, 2023

Since 2018, DxE investigators have documented routine violations of California's animal cruelty laws at Petaluma Poultry factory farms, but the authorities refuse to intervene -- so they are taking action themselves to rescue the animals.

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BLOG

A Letter to the Editor Re: "Churchill Downs to Cease Racing as It Investigates Deaths of Horses"

June 5, 2023

Your story on the shutdown of the Kentucky Derby racetrack failed to provide important context: the growing worldwide movement to abolish horseracing.

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BLOG

Free Speech under Attack in Rural America

May 23, 2023

During my time in Utah, I found people willing to have open and honest discussions. Why, then, are high-ranking members of the Church and the police attempting to stop that from happening? Could it be that egregious abuses documented by DxE at Smithfield were getting too close to those in power? When open dialogue threatens a power structure, it’s time to scrutinize that power structure.

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Our Press Releases

PRESS RELEASE

Berkeley Resident Arrested on Felonies for Filming Safeway Protest, Following Findings of Cruelty and Disease at the Store’s Turkey Supplier

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.”

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PRESS RELEASE

After Acquittal for Smithfield Foods, Whistleblowers and Activists Protest Costco’s Continued Sale of Smithfield Pork

November 12, 2022

The two factory farm investigators who were found “not guilty” last month joined the protest.

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PRESS RELEASE

Investigation Finds Sick Turkey Chicks among Litter Beetle- and Larvae-Infested Corpses at Foster Farms

November 10, 2022

Rescued turkey chick had an infection called omphalitis caused by E. coli.

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PRESS RELEASE

Smithfield Piglet Rescuers Acquitted in Landmark Animal Rights Case

October 9, 2022

Activists take on a multibillion-dollar industry -- and win.

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PRESS RELEASE

Monday Night Football Disrupted by Activists on Field, Highlighting “Landmark” Piglet Rescuer Trial That Began Today

October 3, 2022

Two men face 10+ years in prison in a case decried by legal experts as unconstitutional retaliation for exposing abusive conditions

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PRESS RELEASE

Dozens of Activists Hang Massive 200-Foot Banner from Bay Trail Pedestrian Bridge

September 24, 2022

The demonstration is the kickoff for a week of action dedicated to promoting Rose’s Law, an animal bill of rights that DxE says is their ultimate vision of a kind and just world for animals.

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PRESS RELEASE

“I COVER UP ANIMAL CRUELTY!” Protesters Erect Giant Head of Utah AG Sean Reyes Ahead of Prominent “Right to Rescue” Trial

September 9, 2022

"This is really about inverting the truth: making peaceful activists look dangerous, when the real danger is Smithfield and other companies that systematically torture millions of innocent sentient beings while destroying our environment."

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PRESS RELEASE

Bills-Rams Game Disrupted as Animal Activists Run on Field, Deploy Smoke Flares Ahead of Piglet Rescuer Trial

September 8, 2022

Emek Echo and Katia Shokrai ran across the field holding up red smoke flares and wearing shirts with “RIGHTTORESCUE.COM” text.

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PRESS RELEASE

Utah Judge Changes Venue in Piglet Rescuers’ Trial, After Canvassers Face Death Threats

August 20, 2022

Judge Wilcox repeatedly expressed concerns about advocates potentially intimidating local residents. This is contrary to recent footage and a lawsuit in which it is canvassers supporting Hsiung and Picklesimer who faced death threats and were forced to stop talking to sidewalk pedestrians.

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