Breaking news and publications from Direct Action Everywhere.
Media inquiry? Please email press@dxe.io.
PRESS
June 3, 2025
Wired Magazine
Hundreds of emails and internal documents reviewed by WIRED reveal top lobbyists and representatives of America’s agricultural industry led a persistent and often covert campaign to surveil, discredit, and suppress animal rights organizations for nearly a decade, while relying on corporate spies to infiltrate meetings and functionally serve as an informant for the FBI.
PRESS
June 3, 2025
Wired Magazine
PRESS
March 18, 2024
WKOW.com
"I think most Americans, most people in Wisconsin, want dogs to be protected from torture," said beagle rescuer Wayne Hsiung. "That's not happening right now."
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
March 15, 2024
The New Yorker
PRESS
March 13, 2024
KRON4
“I find it very frustrating. Honestly, I was very excited to go before a jury and let them hear the facts of the case,” said Berkeley native and Defendant Paul Darwin Picklesimer in an interview with KRON4. “It was absolutely shocking and disgusting to see what we saw. You walk in, and you get hit with a stench of all the fecal matter and the lights that are on in the middle of the night. You see that these poor dogs are just in these wire cages, spending their whole life there until they’re sold into experimentation."
PRESS
March 12, 2024
Daily Californian
DxE Director of Communications Cassie King alleged that Golden Gate Fields crowds animals together in stables with “poor conditions” for the majority of the day. She added that DxE believes this treatment is “out of touch” with the surrounding community’s values.
PRESS
March 12, 2024
Daily Californian
PRESS
March 9, 2024
El Diario
“Los perros se tenían que sentar sobre sus propias heces y orines, incapaces de escapar de sus residuos. Estaban tan desesperados que se golpeaban contra las paredes, estiraban las patas a través de los barrotes y mordisqueaban las jaulas”, relata Hsiung. “Sus gritos eran tan fuertes que nos veíamos obligados a gritar nosotros también para comunicarnos, incluso cuando sólo estábamos a un palmo de distancia unos de otros”.
PRESS
March 9, 2024
El Diario
PRESS
March 8, 2024
Common Dreams
The prosecution evidently, "prefers to let the defendants walk free than allow the world to see the dire conditions of dogs at Ridglan and the state trying to jail activists for a heroic act of compassion," said Chris Carraway, an attorney with the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project.
PRESS
March 8, 2024
Common Dreams
PRESS
March 8, 2024
Isthmus
[Defendant Wayne Hsiung] expressed his frustration that “the public still does not know what is happening in research facilities like Ridglan,” which the trial may have shed light on. He said the dismissal left unaddressed some “incredibly important legal and moral issues,” including whether “people have the freedom of conscience to help animals when they’re suffering.”
PRESS RELEASE
March 8, 2024
Today, in a stunning development, the State of Wisconsin moved to dismiss charges against three animal rights activists accused of rescuing three beagles from Ridglan Farms, one of the last two remaining large breeders of dogs for vivisection in the country. Judge Mario White granted the dismissal at a hearing this morning.
PRESS
March 7, 2024
Isthmus
According to the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, “DxE documented dogs crammed into small cages, often alone, with no access to the outdoors; apparent continuous 24-hour lighting; noxious air and feces building up beneath the cages; dogs with red and swollen feet from standing on wire cage floors; and extreme psychological torment. The activists describe the conditions as a ‘factory farm for dogs.’ ”
TOP PRESS
May 1, 2025
San Francisco Chronicle
Just four months after she graduates on May 17 with a bachelor’s degree in social movement strategy, the straight-A student will stand trial in a Sonoma County courtroom for her June 2023 incursion into Petaluma Poultry, a processing facility owned by agribusiness giant Perdue Farms. If convicted for taking four chickens Perdue valued at around $24, she faces up to 5½ years in prison.
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.
BLOG
July 19, 2022
DxE co-founder Wayne Hsiung recently shared the story of a very sick pig who was rescued from Farmer John. This is an excerpt from his Substack blog, The Simple Heart.
BLOG
July 5, 2022
Our signs read “Expose Smithfield’s Deathstar” referring to Smithfield’s Circle Four Farms in Milford, Utah, the largest pig farm in the country. While many criticized the tackiness and absurdity of the action, it garnered much needed media attention.
BLOG
July 2, 2022
Here's what this could mean.
BLOG
June 25, 2022
The protest occurred after yet another horse was killed at the horse racing track that spans Berkeley and Albany.
BLOG
June 25, 2022
Senator Booker spoke about the need for nonviolent direct action and for "not being spectators in democracy!"
BLOG
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.
BLOG
May 20, 2022
Over the last few decades, the Central Valley of California has become plagued by the crisis of dirty drinking water contaminated with nitrates. Latino communities have been disproportionately affected. In the heart of the valley lies Tulare County, a majority Latino district and the largest dairy producing county in the nation.
BLOG
May 5, 2022
This is a response to a recent study by Faunalytics regarding the impacts of protest on diet change.
BLOG
April 14, 2022
High profile sporting events pose a significant opportunity to get eyeballs on a topic– if one is bold enough to risk criminal charges and bodily harm. And it's a tactic that has been used throughout history.
PRESS RELEASE
May 4, 2025
Direct Action Everywhere activists protest dozens of Trader Joe’s stores across the country asking the retailer to cut ties with Perdue’s California subsidiary, Petaluma Poultry, given documented animal abuse
PRESS RELEASE
March 29, 2025
“I want to know why Trader Joe’s is continuing to support Perdue’s animal cruelty and endangering consumers,” said Conrad de Jesus, an Oakland resident who participated in the protest. “They’ve seen the evidence of sick and injured animals languishing without medical care at Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry. It’s time they cut ties with this awful company.”
PRESS RELEASE
March 22, 2025
A handful of counter-protesters showed up with a Trump flag and a cardboard sign reading “Eat chicken.” They heckled the speakers and disrupted photos by standing in front of the photographers.
PRESS RELEASE
March 20, 2025
“I’m appalled that Trader Joe’s would continue to knowingly sell abused animals,” said Sally Zito of Los Angeles, who joined today’s protest in Monrovia. “I have delivered letters and I’ve called corporate headquarters and asked to talk to Trader Joe’s buyers, and they denied this request. They are putting their profits over the lives of animals.”
PRESS RELEASE
March 15, 2025
The protest spotlighted the zoonotic pathogens found at Petaluma Poultry, including salmonella, campylobacter, antibiotic-resistant Enterococcus, and Clostridium perfringens. Two protestors wore the type of biosecurity suits that are required for investigations and held yellow caution tape in front of the store’s meat section, which contains chickens slaughtered at Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse
PRESS RELEASE
March 3, 2025
“If Ms. Rosenberg had rescued a drowning dog from a neighbor’s pool, she would be applauded, not prosecuted,” said Mr. Carraway. “The fact is, California law does not distinguish between rescuing a dog from a pool and rescuing sick and injured chickens from a slaughterhouse. Those who profit off animal agriculture may not like it, but that is the law.”
PRESS RELEASE
March 1, 2025
Outside the store, protestors set up a “human meat” display with an activist covered in fake blood and lying on a tray wrapped in plastic to represent the abused chickens whose plastic-wrapped bodies are sold at Trader Joe’s.
PRESS RELEASE
February 15, 2025
Protestors displayed a giant Elon Musk head with a speech bubble reading “I TORTURE MONKEYS.” With some activists dressed as monkeys inside cages, others held signs reading “Primates are not prototypes.” Several Bay Area residents, including a former animal experimenter, gave speeches condemning the cruelty and ineffectiveness of animal testing.
PRESS RELEASE
February 2, 2025
On Saturday evening, animal rights activists disrupted the dinner service at the upscale restaurant Playa Mill Valley in Marin County, asking the restaurant to cut ties with Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry due to documented animal cruelty.
