Breaking news and publications from Direct Action Everywhere.
Media inquiry? Please email press@dxe.io.
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.
PRESS
August 30, 2024
San Francisco Chronicle
PRESS
July 18, 2023
Daily Californian
“The closure of GGF signifies that the public is becoming aware of the inherent cruelty of animal-exploiting industries,” [DxE press coordinator Alison] Morikawa said. “Residents and elected officials alike are recognizing the violence of horse racing and are moved to act for a more ethical future.”
PRESS
July 18, 2023
Daily Californian
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
July 17, 2023
PRESS
July 16, 2023
NBC Bay Area
"This is a huge victory for the animal rights movement," said DxE organizer Cassie King. "Across the country and around the world, we're seeing rising public pressure and protests against the cruelty of the horseracing industry."
PRESS
July 16, 2023
EIN Newsdesk
Veterinarians say the more than 16 hours of grizzly footage shows the most common method used to kill pigs in the United States is not humane.... They are asking the AVMA to take a leadership role in addressing what they call some of the cruelest practices in animal agriculture.
PRESS
July 16, 2023
EIN Newsdesk
PRESS
July 6, 2023
Northern California Public Media
"I think the right-to-rescue campaign captures something that most people already know and feel in their hearts, that someone who is suffering, who's in need of help, deserves to be helped, deserves to be rescued from the situation where they're being harmed," [defendant Cassie] King said. "And whether that's a dog in a hot car or a human who's injured on the side of the road, or a chicken who's collapsed and starving to death on the floor of a factory farm."
PRESS
July 6, 2023
Northern California Public Media
PRESS
July 3, 2023
AlterNet
Investigations of alternative poultry and egg farms typically reveal practices and attitudes that do not meet consumer expectations—expectations that are cultivated not only by the companies and retailers they do business with but also by animal welfarists who employ “humane” farming language that glosses over the facts with nebulous assertions and omissions... More often than not, the difference between “humane” farms and factory farms is moot.
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.
PRESS
June 26, 2023
Plant-Based News
Animals, of any size or species, are not objects. You cannot put a price tag on their lives. They are individuals who feel fear, sadness, joy, and other emotions just like we do, and they deserve respect.
PRESS
June 26, 2023
Plant-Based News
PRESS
June 24, 2023
Press Democrat
"Not much has changed over the two administrations of Sonoma County district attorneys. They are continuing to retain charges against activists who originally exposed Petaluma Poultry for its animal cruelty."
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.
TOP PRESS
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...
TOP PRESS
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.
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.
BLOG
March 24, 2020
BLOG
August 7, 2019
BLOG
July 5, 2019
PRESS RELEASE
July 31, 2022
PRESS RELEASE
July 14, 2022
Animal rights advocates gathered to mark the two-year anniversary of the release of Unseen, an undercover mini-documentary exposing extreme cruelty inside this facility, and to bear witness and spread compassion for its victims.
PRESS RELEASE
July 4, 2022
Investigators with same animal rights group face felony trial in September after rescuing piglets from a Smithfield Foods factory pig farm
PRESS RELEASE
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.
PRESS RELEASE
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.
PRESS RELEASE
May 23, 2022
Two defendants face years in prison after removing sick piglets from the largest factory pig farm in the U.S.
PRESS RELEASE
April 26, 2022
Bill for moratorium against new factory farms was killed by first Assembly committee set to consider it
PRESS RELEASE
April 22, 2022
Third disruption by animal rights activists this month follows exposé of chickens being “roasted alive” at team owner Glen Taylor’s factory farm
PRESS RELEASE
April 15, 2022
Footage from Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor’s factory farm reveals chickens fully conscious after being “roasted alive” en masse
