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
December 1, 2023
KTSF26
The defendant's father, Xiong Hansheng, said: "I think it's unfair, he didn't commit a crime, he just wanted to protect animals, so I'm a little disappointed, but I also feel that I hope Wayne's behavior can make many animals more protected."
PRESS
December 1, 2023
KTSF26
PRESS
December 1, 2023
VICE News
Authorities seem to be opening a new front against Direct Action Everywhere, an attention-grabbing group that says it documents cruelty and neglect in factory farming.
PRESS
December 1, 2023
VICE News
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
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
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.
BLOG
December 17, 2025
I write to you from this jail cell on behalf of the animals, to beg for your assistance and intervention. This cruelty and suffering has gone on far too long.
PRESS RELEASE
June 12, 2026
Dozens of animal rights activists protested outside biopharmaceutical giant Merck’s West Coast headquarters on Friday, condemning the company’s recent purchase of beagles for animal testing from Ridglan Farms, a notorious dog breeding facility near Madison, Wisconsin that has made national headlines in recent months.
PRESS RELEASE
June 2, 2026
Terry Seese, the Chief of the DA’s Bureau of Investigation, came to speak to the advocates. He took the letter and confirmed the DA’s office is aware of the footage taken at Agresti Calf Ranch, but deflected responsibility onto the Sheriff’s office, which has not made a referral.
PRESS RELEASE
May 17, 2026
Following San Francisco Animal Commission’s vote to recommend a ban on the retail sale of animals, advocates rallied in San Francisco to bring attention to cruelty of the exotic pet trade
PRESS RELEASE
May 16, 2026
Activists gathered peacefully on public property by the calf ranch to bear witness to the calves and called on authorities to take action to protect these vulnerable animals. Stanislaus County Sheriff’s deputies were already present when activists arrived and warned them not to trespass.
PRESS RELEASE
May 12, 2026
New footage showing illegal animal cruelty at a Clover Sonoma-linked calf ranch was published today at FactoryFarmWatch.org. The footage, which was obtained via drone at Agresti Calf Ranch in Stanislaus County, shows calves being kicked in the face, yanked by their tails, and disbudded with hot irons until they collapse in pain.
PRESS RELEASE
May 2, 2026
“Whole Foods presents itself as an ethical retailer, but it continues to sell milk connected to serious animal welfare concerns,” said Madhu Anderson, who organized the protest. “We’re asking them to take responsibility for what’s happening in their supply chain.”
PRESS RELEASE
April 11, 2026
Protesters at the Meyenberg plant held signs reading “Meyenberg Lies, Animals Die” and “Compassion Is Not a Crime.” Two of the defendants were present and spoke out about the cruelty they documented at Vera Goat Dairy.
PRESS RELEASE
March 25, 2026
Four activists have been charged with felony grand theft by the Kings County District Attorney following the open rescue of two sick baby goats from Vera Goat Dairy in Stratford last May. Vera is a 9,000-goat operation that supplies the nation's largest goat milk producer, Meyenberg.
PRESS RELEASE
March 11, 2026
Controversial chicken producer Petaluma Poultry has lost another customer following an investigation by animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), which exposed animal neglect and cruelty at the company’s factory farms and slaughterhouse in Sonoma County.
