Breaking news and publications from Direct Action Everywhere.
Media inquiry? Please email press@dxe.io.
PRESS
May 12, 2026
Los Angeles Times
In late February, animal rights activists flew a drone over a calf ranch in the Central Valley and watched as workers kicked and punched the animals. Footage reviewed by The Times shows a worker pulling a calf by the nose with pliers.
PRESS
May 12, 2026
Los Angeles Times
PRESS
October 29, 2025
The Guardian
“Sonoma county spent over six weeks and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to protect a multibillion-dollar corporation from the rescue of four chickens worth less than $25,” Chris Carraway, Rosenberg’s attorney, said in a statement.
PRESS
October 29, 2025
The Guardian
PRESS
October 29, 2025
KQED
When asked on the stand last week if she wants open rescue “to be something that happens everywhere,” Rosenberg told prosecutors: “Yes.” Rosenberg’s defense team is expected to appeal, creating the opportunity to set a legal precedent for the practice.
PRESS
October 29, 2025
KQED
TOP PRESS
October 29, 2025
San Francisco Chronicle
But even if the appellate court doesn’t reverse Rosenberg’s conviction, she likely won’t regret having risked prison time to force a trial. Her trial, by some measures, was still a success. Several national publications — including The New York Times and the Associated Press — covered it, raising awareness of DxE’s goal to eradicate America’s factory-farming industry by 2040.
TOP PRESS
October 29, 2025
San Francisco Chronicle
PRESS
October 29, 2025
The Press Democrat
“Even if the verdict was good, it would still be disappointing, because still no one is lifting a single finger to look at the allegations of criminal animal cruelty at Petaluma Poultry,” Carraway said. “Unfortunately, at the end of the day, there was more concern about talking about protests Zoe did when she was 14 years old than actually the much worse crimes that are happening day in, day out at Petaluma Poultry.”
PRESS
October 29, 2025
The Press Democrat
PRESS RELEASE
October 29, 2025
At trial, the court severely limited what the jury was able to know about these prior findings at Petaluma Poultry, despite the fact that they heavily influenced Ms. Rosenberg’s belief that rescue was necessary.
PRESS RELEASE
October 29, 2025
TOP PRESS
October 28, 2025
The Associated Press
A California animal rights activist on trial for taking four chickens from one of Perdue Farms’ major poultry plants said Tuesday that she was rescuing Poppy, Ivy, Aster, and Azalea from abuse while prosecutors say she broke the law.
TOP PRESS
October 28, 2025
The Associated Press
PRESS
October 28, 2025
San Francisco Chronicle
During his closing argument in a Sonoma County trial that could reverberate throughout America’s animal rights movement, Deputy District Attorney Matt Hobson seized several opportunities to stress something that should have seemed obvious: The defendant — not animal agriculture — is on trial here. His need to reiterate that point Tuesday spoke to the unique nature of this case.
PRESS
October 28, 2025
San Francisco Chronicle
PRESS
October 28, 2025
The Press Democrat
Hobson also questioned why Rosenberg took only four chickens if her goal was to save animals. Carraway countered that rescuing even a few birds could still raise awareness about animal cruelty.
PRESS
October 28, 2025
The Press Democrat
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.
TOP PRESS
March 21, 2023
Vox
DxE’s theory — that when you show a jury of ordinary citizens what happens to animals in the meat industry, they’ll agree that they deserve rescue — turned out to be true, challenging the idea that the animal rights agenda is radical or unpopular.
TOP PRESS
March 20, 2023
LA Times
“This is a victory for [the chickens] Ethan, Jax, and all other living beings subjected to abuse by corporations like Foster Farms,” Santurio said in a news release from Direct Action Everywhere. “I have so much love for the chickens in my family and I want all animals to experience that safety and respect.”
TOP PRESS
March 9, 2023
LA Times
“We published this video within an hour with both my name and Alicia Santurio’s name attached to it because we believe what we’re doing is legal and morally right,” Paul said in an interview with The Times.
BLOG
July 14, 2026
The prosecutorial viewpoint seems to be at odds with a growing public expectation that animals raised for food should not be left to suffer — and aggressive marketing (in this case, “humanewashing”) often deceives consumers into thinking they’re making the right purchasing choices.
BLOG
May 28, 2026
The elephant seals at Año Nuevo are dying because they share beaches with infected seabirds — infected because H5N1 has become endemic in wild bird populations worldwide, a spread driven in significant part by the concentration and global trade of farmed poultry.
BLOG
May 20, 2026
Deputies testified that they never investigated the animal cruelty allegations at the dairy or referred them to any agency, despite being told about dead and suffering animals on site. One officer even defended the facility by claiming that “you can go to any dairy, anywhere in the country, and there will be dead goats there.”
BLOG
April 22, 2026
Open rescue as a strategy is not just about getting a few animals out of their cages, it is also about creating a crisis that can no longer be ignored. It is about forcing the public and people in power to choose a side.
BLOG
March 19, 2026
The dairy industry trade group's CEO, Anja Raudabaugh, spread blatant lies about animal rights activists on a recent podcast discussing DxE's latest project, FactoryFarmWatch.org. This blog corrects the record and invites Ms. Raudabaugh to engage in an honest and transparent conversation.
BLOG
February 19, 2026
Factory Farm Watch is more than a map. It is a launchpad for statewide action to end factory farming.
BLOG
February 6, 2026
A summary of the first annual Animal Liberation Conference in India, co-hosted by DxE and Indore Animal Liberation
BLOG
January 4, 2026
I think the public has made it resoundingly clear that they feel Perdue should be prosecuted for its crimes. I hope you'll take that into consideration and use your power as a judge to do some good for these animals.
BLOG
December 18, 2025
No prosecution, conviction, or sentence, will ever stop a movement driven by compassion and care.
PRESS RELEASE
October 1, 2026
Factory farm investigators with the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) just confirmed that Valadao Dairy, owned by Congressman David Valadao's family, sends newborn dairy calves to Grimmius Cattle Company, California's largest calf-raising operation where DxE investigators have recorded sick baby cows being dragged from a trailer and shot in the head.
PRESS RELEASE
September 26, 2026
With the group were several rescued lab beagles. The demonstration, which was organized by the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), aimed to raise awareness about the COMPACT Act (H.R.10522), a bipartisan bill that was introduced on Wednesday to end federal funding for experiments on dogs and cats.
PRESS RELEASE
September 23, 2026
At a hearing last month, Judge Jim Trevino reduced all of the felony charges to misdemeanors after reviewing a defense filing detailing evidence of significant animal cruelty at the dairy, calling the filing persuasive. After today’s judicial diversion, all charges will be dismissed following completion of 40 hours of community service and 5 months probation.
PRESS RELEASE
September 21, 2026
Workers at California's largest dairy operation were recorded hitting and kicking young calves in the face in July. In another part of the facility, footage shows a worker whipping adult cows to move them toward the milking barn.
PRESS RELEASE
September 18, 2026
The drone footage shows workers pushing and pulling newborn calves from a trailer, kicking them to make them stand, and throwing them into small, individual crates, which are a common form of intensive confinement used in the calf-raising industry.
PRESS RELEASE
September 5, 2026
Protesters entered the store with signs reading “Someone Not Something” and “Stop Selling Animals,” as well as trash cans overflowing with plush parakeets, rubber snakes, and rubber mice to represent how Petco treats animals like trash, based on images from multiple recent investigations of breeders that sell to Petco.
PRESS RELEASE
August 25, 2026
The ruling comes in response to a filing earlier this month detailing evidence of significant animal cruelty at the dairy. The judge also ordered that the District Attorney’s office disclose evidence of DA Sarah Hacker’s relationship with the owners of the dairy farm property involved in the prosecution against these animal rescuers.
PRESS RELEASE
August 22, 2026
The protest featured a 10-foot-tall milk carton prop modeled after Meyenberg packaging, but with an image of the dead pile of goats documented at Meyenberg’s Vera Goat Dairy and with red streamers symbolizing the animals’ blood flowing out from the top of the carton.
PRESS RELEASE
August 11, 2026
Today, defense attorneys for four goat rescuers charged in Kings County filed evidence with the court of animal cruelty at the Whole Foods-supplying goat dairy at the heart of the case. They have submitted a motion requesting that Judge Jim Trevino reduce the felony charges to misdemeanors.
