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
December 1, 2023
CBS Bay Area
The organization is hoping to make legal the right of people to enter places such as a factory farm to remove animals that are being "exploited" or are in distress.
PRESS
December 1, 2023
CBS Bay Area
PRESS
December 1, 2023
Democracy Now!
In California, animal rights activist and attorney Wayne Hsiung has been sentenced to 90 days in jail after he was found guilty of felony conspiracy and misdemeanor trespassing for rescuing dozens of injured and dying ducks and chickens at two factory farms in Sonoma County, California.
PRESS
December 1, 2023
Democracy Now!
PRESS
December 1, 2023
UnchainedTV
Hsiung could have been sentenced to three years in jail. So, at first blush, the relatively light sentence caused relief amongst his supporters. However, it quickly became apparent that the sentence contained an onerous condition. Without the prosecution asking for this, the judge ordered Hsiung to have no contact with the other named “co-conspirators” in this case, who just happen to be most of his closest friends.
PRESS
December 1, 2023
UnchainedTV
PRESS
November 30, 2023
Northern California Public Media
Hsiung’s father, Hansen Hsiung, spoke about the sentence outside the courthouse. "I expect something worse than this," Hansen Hsiung said. "So I feel great relief, even though I know that Wayne doesn't deserve any jail sentence, doesn't deserve to be convicted as a criminal."
PRESS
November 30, 2023
Northern California Public Media
PRESS RELEASE
November 30, 2023
The University of Denver’s Animal Activist Legal Defense Project is working on the appeal. Attorney Chris Carraway said, “I often hear courts describe trials as a search for the truth. Mr. Hsiung’s trial was anything but. The press had limited access; trial participants were unconstitutionally gagged from the beginning; and the court bent over backwards to prevent the defense from detailing the chronic animal cruelty found which informed the intent behind the actions."
PRESS RELEASE
November 30, 2023
PRESS
November 30, 2023
Press Democrat
Shortly after court recessed, animal welfare activist Zoe Rosenberg, who said she was going to drop printed evidence of animal cruelty at Reichardt Duck Farm at the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, asked others to march with her to the department a few blocks away. As they approached the parking lot, Sheriff’s Office vehicles approached and deputies arrested Rosenberg and two other demonstrators, Rocky Chau and Conrad de Jesus.
PRESS
November 30, 2023
Press Democrat
PRESS
November 30, 2023
North Bay Business Journal
A dozen of Wayne Hsiung’s supporters watched silently — some of whom fought back tears — as Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Laura Passaglia sentenced Hsiung to 90 days in county jail, followed by two years of probation.
PRESS
November 30, 2023
North Bay Business Journal
PRESS
November 30, 2023
Marin Independent Journal
Hearing and seeing animal agriculture firsthand, I know that animals deserve better. I will never forget seeing a cow running after a transport truck leaving a dairy. They were running parallel to the road just to be stopped by a fence, and forced to watch their family being taken away. This single event one day at one farm was so profound I can’t imagine how much suffering happens daily at factory farms everywhere.
PRESS
November 30, 2023
Marin Independent Journal
PRESS
November 30, 2023
Plant-Based News
From his jail cell, where he was held for four weeks awaiting sentencing, Hsiung published blog posts reaffirming his belief in the power of non-violent direct action. He also reported successes in educating fellow inmates on veganism and animal rights.
PRESS
November 30, 2023
Plant-Based News
TOP PRESS
March 20, 2018
The New York Times
TOP PRESS
November 7, 2017
Mother Jones
TOP PRESS
November 1, 2017
The Intercept
TOP PRESS
October 5, 2017
The Intercept
TOP PRESS
September 14, 2017
The Washington Post
TOP PRESS
July 6, 2017
The New York Times
TOP PRESS
October 20, 2016
The Washington Post
While the hens are not in cages, the video shows them crowded together, covered in feces and blood, struggling to breathe and attacking and even eating one other.
TOP PRESS
January 8, 2015
The New York Times
An animal rights group released on Thursday a disturbing video of laying hens at a farm in Northern California that supplies eggs to Whole Foods and Organic Valley, among other retailers and distributors.
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.
BLOG
February 2, 2022
Tip #1: You need an organizational system that you understand and use every day.
PRESS RELEASE
June 4, 2025
Describing the requested gag order as “overbroad and vague by any constitutional standard,” Judge Gnoss noted that Ms. Rosenberg’s critics, too, had participated in public discussion about her case, pointing by way of example to a statement by Bill Mattos, President of the California Poultry Federation, describing Ms. Rosenberg’s rescue of four chickens as a “terrorist act.”
PRESS RELEASE
May 27, 2025
Tuesday's rescue follows a months-long investigation into Vera Goat Dairy by DxE earlier this year, which found that dozens of dead mother and baby goats are regularly dumped into an illegal dead pile on the property, indicating that the operation is experiencing high rates of mortality.
PRESS RELEASE
May 24, 2025
Approximately 200 activists with the animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) marched through downtown Petaluma Saturday afternoon in support of animal liberation and the right to rescue animals from abuse. They began at Penry Park and weaved through downtown including past diners at restaurants along the riverfront. Along the way, they chanted, delivered speeches, and handed out educational information to the public about Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse.
PRESS RELEASE
May 19, 2025
Over the weekend, animal rights activists with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) held protests across Sonoma County to elevate animal cruelty at Petaluma Poultry, a subsidiary of national poultry giant Perdue Foods. On Sunday, they delivered their message to Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez with a protest outside her home in Windsor, urging her to finally prosecute Petaluma Poultry for documented criminal animal cruelty.
PRESS RELEASE
May 13, 2025
Free speech experts say that Perdue’s lawsuit is a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP suit, intended to silence activists, burden them with legal fees, and intimidate them from protesting. California's anti-SLAPP statute was passed to enable defendants to quickly dismiss meritless lawsuits targeting protected activities.
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.”
