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
October 4, 2023
The Daily Illini
Open rescue doesn’t just win legal victories — it raises larger societal questions about how animals ought to be treated. If animals have a right to be rescued, should we even allow them to be exploited or killed in the first place?
PRESS
October 4, 2023
The Daily Illini
PRESS
October 3, 2023
KTVU/Fox 2
"It's tragic, but it's not that surprising," [activist] Paul Darwin Picklesimer said. "The deaths are just simply inherent. No matter what they do, there are always going to be deaths."
PRESS
October 3, 2023
KTVU/Fox 2
BLOG
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.
PRESS
September 25, 2023
Davis Vanguard
Hsiung is proceeding to trial as his own attorney, facing multiple felony conspiracy charges for his involvement in mass protests where hundreds of activists openly rescued animals at factory farms in Sonoma County in 2018 and 2019.
PRESS
September 25, 2023
Davis Vanguard
PRESS
September 22, 2023
Press Democrat
Priya Sawhney pleaded no contest to two counts of trespassing and was ordered to do 100 hours of community service through the Sonoma County Volunteer Center.
PRESS
September 22, 2023
Press Democrat
PRESS
September 20, 2023
The Atlantic
Everything, everywhere in this farm for “free-range” chickens was covered in excrement. The industrial hangar was so enormous, filled with so many clone-birds, that I felt like I was staring into an infinity mirror.
PRESS
September 19, 2023
Daily Californian
"I hope that I’ll be able to testify to the sickness of the ducklings and the hens who are rescued,” [witness Zoe] Rosenberg said. “I think that’s essential information for the jury to hear, and I hope the judge allows that information to be heard.”
PRESS
September 19, 2023
Daily Californian
PRESS
September 11, 2023
Northern California Public Media
An absolved King addressed the court, saying “I don’t believe I’ve done anything wrong by trying to help suffering animals."
PRESS
September 11, 2023
Northern California Public Media
PRESS
September 8, 2023
CBS Bay Area
A trial about the right to rescue began Friday in the North Bay where animal-rights activists are being prosecuted after taking several ducks and chickens from a farm in Petaluma. Anne Makovec reports.
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
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.
BLOG
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.
BLOG
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.
BLOG
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.
BLOG
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.
BLOG
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?
BLOG
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.
BLOG
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.
BLOG
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.
PRESS RELEASE
July 17, 2023
“This closure is a win for horses and for vulnerable humans who are taken advantage of by the gambling industry,” says Rocky Chau, a DxE activist who was arrested during a protest on the GGF track in March 2021.
PRESS RELEASE
June 13, 2023
Hundreds are gathered outside the slaughterhouse calling on the Sonoma County District Attorney to prosecute Petaluma Poultry for documented criminal animal cruelty and infectious diseases that are endangering public health
PRESS RELEASE
June 10, 2023
While hundreds rallied in support of the right to rescue animals from abuse, a few activists delivered “feeder” mice and suffering betta fish to safety.
PRESS RELEASE
May 31, 2023
Recent similar trials in St. George, UT and Merced, CA resulted in groundbreaking acquittals for open rescuers.
PRESS RELEASE
May 5, 2023
Congresswoman Claudia Tenney wants federal funds used to surveil people who support rescuing animals in distress.
PRESS RELEASE
May 3, 2023
Animal rights activists are calling this a win for the right to rescue animals from abuse.
PRESS RELEASE
April 25, 2023
A Beaver County Judge convicted Curtis Vollmar of criminal trespass and disorderly conduct for talking to members of the public about Smithfield Foods.
PRESS RELEASE
April 24, 2023
The “Right to Rescue” is a hot topic after a California jury acquitted two activists who removed sick birds from a Foster Farms slaughter truck. Jurors, defendants, attorneys, and law professors gathered to discuss the verdict's meaning for laws related to corporate animal abuse, animal rescue, and animal personhood.
PRESS RELEASE
April 16, 2023
A California jury found two women “not guilty” for rescuing sick birds from a Foster Farms slaughter truck.
