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The largest pig slaughterhouse in California is shutting down.

July 2, 2022

Here's what this could mean.

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BLOG

The largest pig slaughterhouse in California is shutting down.

July 2, 2022

Here's what this could mean.

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BLOG

DxE activists talk with Senator Cory Booker about upcoming Smithfield trial

June 25, 2022

Senator Booker spoke about the need for nonviolent direct action and for "not being spectators in democracy!"

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BLOG

DxE activists talk with Senator Cory Booker about upcoming Smithfield trial

June 25, 2022

Senator Booker spoke about the need for nonviolent direct action and for "not being spectators in democracy!"

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BLOG

Activists display massive 100 foot banner on overpass calling on Golden Gate Fields to shut down

June 25, 2022

The protest occurred after yet another horse was killed at the horse racing track that spans the cities of Berkeley and Albany.

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BLOG

Activists display massive 100 foot banner on overpass calling on Golden Gate Fields to shut down

June 25, 2022

The protest occurred after yet another horse was killed at the horse racing track that spans Berkeley and Albany.

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PRESS

Protestors stormed one of Toronto's expensive retail stores

June 20, 2022

blogTO

Fur Free Toronto and Direct Action Everywhere Toronto stormed Dior and Tiffany & Co. on Bloor West in Yorkville to try to put pressure on them to adopt a fur-free policy.

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PRESS

Protestors stormed one of Toronto's expensive retail stores

June 20, 2022

blogTO

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PRESS RELEASE

After Judge Rules to Exclude Animal Cruelty Evidence In Trial, Bay Area Felony Defendants March with Photos from Farm

June 18, 2022

Over 70 activists, including two Bay Area residents facing felony charges for rescuing piglets from a Smithfield factory farm in Milford, Utah, marched through the streets of San Francisco Saturday.

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PRESS RELEASE

After Judge Rules to Exclude Animal Cruelty Evidence In Trial, Bay Area Felony Defendants March with Photos from Farm

June 18, 2022

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PRESS RELEASE

Former Baywatch star enters “Not Guilty” plea in Foster Farms chicken rescue case

June 16, 2022

Alexandra Paul and Alicia Santurio, two members of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), have been charged with theft in conjunction with a dramatic rescue of two chickens from a Foster Farms slaughter truck.

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PRESS RELEASE

Former Baywatch star enters “Not Guilty” plea in Foster Farms chicken rescue case

June 16, 2022

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PRESS

Three Restaurants Remove Foie Gras From Menu After Protests

June 14, 2022

NowThis

After repeated protests by activists, three Orlando restaurants have taken foie gras off of their menus.

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PRESS

Three Restaurants Remove Foie Gras From Menu After Protests

June 14, 2022

NowThis

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BLOG

As Farmer John Slaughterhouse Closes, Our Work Must Continue

June 14, 2022

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BLOG

As Farmer John Slaughterhouse Closes, Our Work Must Continue

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.

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PRESS

3 Race Horses Die at Golden Gate Fields

June 1, 2022

Kron 4

“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,” said DxE organizer Paul Darwin Picklesimer.

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PRESS

3 Race Horses Die at Golden Gate Fields

June 1, 2022

Kron 4

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Our Top Press Hits

TOP PRESS

These California and Colorado Ballot Measures Are Terrifying the Meat Industry

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.

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TOP PRESS

Secret Recordings Capture the Ugly Reality Inside a Denver Slaughterhouse

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.

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TOP PRESS

Sonoma Loves Its Farms. Activists Call Them Factories. Could a Ballot Measure Upend This County?

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.

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TOP PRESS

Groups Seek to Ban Large-Scale Animal Farming in Sonoma County

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.”

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TOP PRESS

An Animal-Rights Activist and the Problem of Political Despair

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.

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TOP PRESS

A California Town Will Vote on Banning Factory Farms. What Does That Mean for the Rest of the US?

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.

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TOP PRESS

You’re More Likely to Go to Prison for Exposing Animal Cruelty Than for Committing It

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.

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TOP PRESS

This Is the Ops Manual for the Most Tech-Savvy Animal Liberation Group in the US

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.

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TOP PRESS

Animal Rights Activist Convicted of Felony for Rescuing Sick Chickens

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.

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DxE's Blog

BLOG

How does a city become plant-based? You start by divesting from animal agriculture.

April 1, 2021

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BLOG

😱 The rule of 3.5% has been broken. What does this mean for DxE?

February 11, 2021

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BLOG

The Government is Covering up COVID-19 at Mink Farms – and Blaming Animal Rights Activists

January 25, 2021

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BLOG

3 things to know if you want to help wild animals

January 21, 2021

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BLOG

Can We Break Dunbar’s Number?

January 19, 2021

We’ve been hovering around this 150 number for a while now in the SF Bay Area chapter, and we know we have to grow past this, so we set off to figure out how to break Dunbar’s number.

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BLOG

When giving someone a drink of water becomes an act of civil disobedience

September 11, 2020

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BLOG

Five reasons why a moratorium is the right next step in our fight to #CancelAnimalAg

August 27, 2020

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BLOG

Notes on the Removal of Aidan Hill from DxE

August 19, 2020

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BLOG

How One Bird's Death Illustrates Our Nation’s Pandemic Failures (and its Hope)

August 14, 2020

The diseases suffered by Nina and her species never should have existed. Now, they threaten us all -- but her story should give us hope.

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Our Press Releases

PRESS RELEASE

Residents Protest Golden Gate Fields After Third Horse Death in 2023

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.”

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PRESS RELEASE

Protesters Call Out Chick-Fil-A for Claiming “Humane” Standards While Sourcing from Animal Abusing Foster Farms

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.

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PRESS RELEASE

Protestors Call on Merced DA to Prosecute Documented Cruelty at Foster Farms Livingston Slaughterhouse

February 15, 2023

Citing practices that cause prolonged, terrifying, and painful deaths at Foster Farms’ killing facility, activists call for corporate accountability.

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PRESS RELEASE

Protesters Call for Closure of Primate Research Center at UC Davis, Citing Inhumane Practices, Federal Violations, and Failures of Animal Studies to Produce Relevant Results

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.

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PRESS RELEASE

Activists Call on USDA to End Use of Gas Chambers, Delivering Undercover Footage of Pigs Being Gassed in Slaughterhouse

January 24, 2023

The footage shows pigs screaming, gasping, thrashing violently, and trying to escape as they descend into the pit of CO2 gas.

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PRESS RELEASE

International Animal Rights Network Re-Creates Dramatic First Protest to Celebrate 10 Years of Growth and Landmark Achievements

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.

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PRESS RELEASE

First-Ever Footage inside a US Slaughterhouse Gas Chamber Obtained at Smithfield Foods

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.

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PRESS RELEASE

Residents Hold Memorial Protest for 15 Horses Who Died at Golden Gate Fields in 2022

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.

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PRESS RELEASE

Residents Protest Golden Gate Fields Following Deaths of Three Horses

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."

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