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
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."
PRESS
June 20, 2023
La Presse
Translation: Suspended sentences and conditional discharges for the 11 vegan activists
PRESS
June 20, 2023
La Presse
PRESS
June 20, 2023
Daily Californian
A petition, led by the animal rights organization Direct Action Everywhere, to shut down the horse track has gained more than 39,000 signatures. “[The horses] are... forced to run until they are, one way or another, led to die,” said campus alumna Cassie King, organizer with Direct Action Everywhere.
PRESS
June 20, 2023
Daily Californian
TOP 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.
TOP PRESS
June 2, 2025
The Intercept
“Animal rights and environmental groups have committed more acts of terrorism than Al Qaeda,” warned an FBI agent who met with Big Ag groups.
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.
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
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.
PRESS RELEASE
July 27, 2026
Factory farm investigators with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) used drones to document cruel handling of calves at 140 Cattle Co., a calf-raising operation linked to Hilmar Cheese Company, one of the largest cheese producers in the U.S.
PRESS RELEASE
July 18, 2026
Activists first protested silently next to the animals on display inside Petco in San Rafael, and then loudly outside the store, urging Petco to end the retail sale of animals at all locations.
PRESS RELEASE
June 30, 2026
Direct Action Everywhere Los Angeles campaigned to urge the grocery chain to cut ties with Meyenberg, after the group’s investigation at a Meyenberg dairy exposed emaciated, ill goats and an illegal dead pile
PRESS RELEASE
June 22, 2026
A DxE drone investigation released in May shows calves kicked in the face, yanked by their tails, and disbudded with hot irons at Agresti Calf Ranch in Stanislaus County. The facility is owned by the Agresti-Assali family which also owns the adjacent Clover Sonoma milk supplier Double D Dairies. DxE investigators witnessed calves from Double D Dairies being transported to Agresti Calf Ranch.
PRESS RELEASE
June 20, 2026
With Bay Area cities moving to ban the retail sale of animals, animal rights activists with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) are turning up the pressure on one of the Bay’s biggest pet retailers: Petco. Dozens of activists with DxE, PETA, and other groups protested inside and outside Petco in San Mateo Saturday afternoon.
