Breaking news and publications from Direct Action Everywhere.
Media inquiry? Please email press@dxe.io.
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 RELEASE
April 16, 2023
A California jury found two women “not guilty” for rescuing sick birds from a Foster Farms slaughter truck.
PRESS
April 15, 2023
CBS News Bay Area
The protest is "in tribute to the unconsenting athletes whose extreme stress, horrific injuries, and frequent deaths are, according to activists, downplayed by the profit-driven racing industry," said Cassie King, a member of the animal rights group.
PRESS
April 15, 2023
CBS News Bay Area
PRESS
April 14, 2023
Pontos News
Οι ακτιβιστές εισέβαλαν σε μεγάλο σουπερμάρκετ στον Πειραιά, έχυσαν κόκκινη μπογιά στις βιτρίνες του κρεοπωλείου, και αφού φώναξαν συνθήματα, πραγματοποίησαν καθιστή διαμαρτυρία, εμποδίζοντας την «πώληση νεκρών ζώων». [The activists stormed a large supermarket in Piraeus, poured red paint on the butcher's shop windows, and after shouting slogans, staged a seated protest, preventing the "sale of dead animals".]
PRESS
April 14, 2023
Pontos News
PRESS
March 30, 2023
Blog TO
Several animal rights activists took issue with the storefront's graphics that were displayed through the window, which depicted pigs and an octopus.... Protestors were seen holding signs that read, "it's not food it's violence," while others were pictured painting the words "animals are not products" on newspapers taped onto the storefront.
PRESS
March 30, 2023
Blog TO
TOP PRESS
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.
TOP PRESS
March 30, 2023
Salt Lake Tribune
PRESS
March 28, 2023
Riverfront Times
Sydney Sager kept shouting "drop all animal acts" even while being pushed out of the ring. [Moolah Shriners Circus] has "a long list of violations, ranging from emaciated animals to terrorizing exotic animals with violent training."
PRESS
March 28, 2023
Riverfront Times
PRESS
March 23, 2023
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
At last year’s circus, Direct Action Everywhere tried to stop traffic at the Family Arena. On Thanksgiving, they marched in a parade downtown behind the Shriners’ tiny automobiles, chanting into bullhorns. “We were pretty consistent. They could not get away from us,” said activist Sasha Zemmel. “We just kept upping the antics.”
PRESS
March 23, 2023
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
BLOG
March 23, 2023
As we tear down the industry, we lift up animals. We show the world the violence that must be left in the past, and the beauty the future can hold.
BLOG
March 23, 2023
We have the momentum and we cannot stop now. 2023 will bring more open rescues, more bold actions, and more trials. As we tear down the industry, we lift up animals. We show the world the violence that must be left in the past, and the beauty the future can hold.
PRESS
March 22, 2023
Inside Edition
Paul and a companion ruffled feathers when they rescued two chickens on their way to a poultry food processing plant in California.
PRESS
March 22, 2023
Inside Edition
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
October 27, 2021
A legal fight over pig crates in North Carolina ended this year. But the rescue of a piglet shows that the struggle has just begun.
BLOG
August 12, 2021
Humans want to be on the winning team. Winning also gives those involved in the struggle a boost of motivation and efficacy.
BLOG
June 22, 2021
Bloomberg columnist Adam Minter recently penned an article titled “Covid Almost Caused a Meat Crisis,” sounding the alarm about potential meat shortages. But the meat industry is itself a perpetual crisis, and Minter’s diagnosis of both problem and solution get it exactly wrong.
BLOG
June 15, 2021
The Tennessee legislature has passed a bill that would include farms in the definition of critical infrastructure. But at what cost?
BLOG
May 26, 2021
Research indicates that likely the best tactic to reduce the impact of imposter syndrome is talking about it.
BLOG
April 20, 2021
New investigation into Land O'Lakes shows routine violations of own animal welfare standards
PRESS RELEASE
March 4, 2023
“The racing industry gives horses ridiculous names like “Big Laugh” because the suffering of these animals is just a game to them,” said DxE organizer Kitty Jones. “We give them respectful names because we see them as individuals worthy of respect.”
PRESS RELEASE
February 25, 2023
Referencing Chick-Fil-A’s history of oppression toward marginalized groups, activists say the company’s disregard for animals is part of a pattern.
PRESS RELEASE
February 15, 2023
Citing practices that cause prolonged, terrifying, and painful deaths at Foster Farms’ killing facility, activists call for corporate accountability.
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."
