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
October 19, 2023
Sentient Media
Perhaps the most well-known case of open rescue involves two piglets, Lily and Lizzie. Ill and underweight when they were found by activists at a Smithfield-owned (the largest pork producer in the U.S.) facility in Utah, Circle Four Farms, the pigs were rescued by activists and relocated to animal sanctuaries, which the FBI then raided in search of the pigs’ DNA.
PRESS
October 12, 2023
Press Democrat
An image of a chicken with an eye injury and that was believed to be too frail to flee humans was indicative of the chicken population at a poultry farm just outside Petaluma where activists held a protest in 2018, one of them told a jury Thursday.
PRESS
October 12, 2023
Press Democrat
PRESS
October 11, 2023
Daily Californian
A similar group of deaths occurred at Golden Gate Fields in November 2021, when four horses died over the course of a week. “This type of pattern is common for horse racing,” said Samantha Faye, lead organizer of Stop Blood Sports and spokesperson for DxE.
PRESS
October 6, 2023
Press Democrat
[Direct Action Everywhere/DxE] argues they believed the animals were being mistreated. Referencing California’s animal cruelty laws, they contend they had the right to rescue animals in distress.
PRESS
October 6, 2023
Press Democrat
PRESS
October 6, 2023
Davis Vanguard
In Deputy District Attorney Robert Waner’s opening statement, the prosecutor told jurors Hsiung and DxE activists believe that compassion should be extended to all animals.
PRESS
October 6, 2023
UnchainedTV
The judge in the Sonoma rescue trial of animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung has ruled against allowing him to show videos of suffering ducks and chickens to the jury.
PRESS
October 5, 2023
North Bay Business Journal
Hsiung told jurors Thursday the activists support transparency and their ultimate goal is to expose mistreatment of animals. “You cannot fight a shadow with more shadows. You fight a shadow with light,” he said.
PRESS
October 5, 2023
North Bay Business Journal
PRESS
October 4, 2023
The Daily Illini
Open rescue doesn’t just win legal victories — it raises larger societal questions about how animals ought to be treated. If animals have a right to be rescued, should we even allow them to be exploited or killed in the first place?
PRESS
October 4, 2023
The Daily Illini
PRESS
October 3, 2023
KTVU/Fox 2
"It's tragic, but it's not that surprising," [activist] Paul Darwin Picklesimer said. "The deaths are just simply inherent. No matter what they do, there are always going to be deaths."
PRESS
October 3, 2023
KTVU/Fox 2
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
October 1, 2023
To everyone who doesn’t believe in a better world, I understand. I feel your pain and I know how hard it is to keep going in a world as painful as ours. But, just a glimmer of hope saved Vincent’s life and it might just save the rest of the animals, too. So please, don’t give up.
BLOG
August 30, 2023
If you saw a little duckling on his back, paddling his legs and struggling to get back up, what would you do? Would you keep walking? Or would you help him?
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.
BLOG
June 5, 2023
Your story on the shutdown of the Kentucky Derby racetrack failed to provide important context: the growing worldwide movement to abolish horseracing.
BLOG
May 23, 2023
During my time in Utah, I found people willing to have open and honest discussions. Why, then, are high-ranking members of the Church and the police attempting to stop that from happening? Could it be that egregious abuses documented by DxE at Smithfield were getting too close to those in power? When open dialogue threatens a power structure, it’s time to scrutinize that power structure.
BLOG
May 1, 2023
I have seen firsthand the trauma these programs inflict on children and the violence they inflict on animals. It’s time we reform 4-H and FFA to no longer include programs where kids raise animals to die.
BLOG
March 23, 2023
We have the momentum and we cannot stop now. 2023 will bring more open rescues, more bold actions, and more trials. As we tear down the industry, we lift up animals. We show the world the violence that must be left in the past, and the beauty the future can hold.
BLOG
February 1, 2023
Utah legislators with ties to the Farm Bureau released House Bill 114, “Theft Defense Amendments,” in direct response to the outcome of the Smithfield Trial.
BLOG
January 28, 2023
In the first-ever Bay Area Direct Action Skill Share (B.A.D.A.S.S.), starting March 25, a cross-movement cohort of 100 activists will unite in Oakland for 5 days of intensive direct action training.
PRESS RELEASE
December 7, 2020
Citing mink-to-human transmission in Denmark, advocates say the public deserves transparency about the nature of the threat
PRESS RELEASE
November 22, 2020
While Smithfield demands prison for Utah activists, this turkey farmer is helping them rescue more animals
PRESS RELEASE
November 17, 2020
Simultaneous protests at slaughterhouses and factory farms throughout CA demand moratorium prohibiting new factory farm and slaughterhouse construction
PRESS RELEASE
October 1, 2020
Arrestees include photographers and videographers, as well as activists who chained themselves to the building
PRESS RELEASE
August 25, 2020
PRESS RELEASE
August 7, 2020
Smithfield faces nuisance lawsuit judgements totaling hundreds of millions for waste pollution sprayed disproportionately on communities of color
PRESS RELEASE
July 14, 2020
Rotting pig carcasses are seen being fed on by wild animals after workers cut infected flesh out of carcasses before selling them for human consumption
PRESS RELEASE
July 3, 2020
Activists say proposal for partial divestment doesn’t go far enough
PRESS RELEASE
June 23, 2020
Factory farm investigator alleges improper connections between Smithfield Inc. and Utah Attorney General
