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
September 9, 2022
Fox News
"Smithfield, like the animal agriculture industry itself, is a barbaric house of cards -- built on unconscionable, systemic abuse, and desperate attempts to shield that abuse from the public eye."
PRESS
September 9, 2022
Fox News
"Smithfield, like the animal agriculture industry itself, is a barbaric house of cards -- built on unconscionable, systemic abuse, and desperate attempts to shield that abuse from the public eye," Shokrai said in a news release. "I want the world to know that animal rescuers are facing years in prison because of this company’s undue influence on our democracy."
PRESS RELEASE
September 9, 2022
"This is really about inverting the truth: making peaceful activists look dangerous, when the real danger is Smithfield and other companies that systematically torture millions of innocent sentient beings while destroying our environment."
PRESS RELEASE
September 9, 2022
PRESS
September 9, 2022
USA Today
Direct Action Everywhere said the protesters on Thursday night were trying to highlight an upcoming Smithfield Foods factory farm trial.
PRESS
September 9, 2022
USA Today
PRESS
September 9, 2022
New York Post
The motive for the wild act was to bring justice for two other activists facing over a decade in prison for rescuing two sick baby piglets from a Smithfield Foods factory farm.
PRESS RELEASE
September 8, 2022
Emek Echo and Katia Shokrai ran across the field holding up red smoke flares and wearing shirts with “RIGHTTORESCUE.COM” text.
PRESS RELEASE
September 8, 2022
PRESS
September 5, 2022
Mercury News
"Seagulls poop. Pigeons poop. Crows poop and so do ducks -- but no one is talking about killing them, so why should we kill the geese?" Supervisor David Canepa said.
PRESS
September 5, 2022
Mercury News
PRESS
September 2, 2022
Salt Lake Tribune
Attorney General Sean Reyes could have prosecuted Smithfield for animal cruelty, not activists for disclosing the truth.
PRESS
September 2, 2022
Salt Lake Tribune
PRESS
August 29, 2022
Salt Lake Tribune
Recent rulings — and the June bombshell that Smithfield Foods, owner of Circle Four Farms, will shut down two-thirds of its operation in the county — have shaped how the trial will play out.
PRESS
August 29, 2022
Salt Lake Tribune
PRESS
August 28, 2022
Indybay
On August 27th, to take part in the 8th annual World Day for the end of Speciesism, members of Direct Action Everywhere marched along a portion of the Bay Bridge to bring attention to this issue.
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
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
June 10, 2025
Animal rights activists with DxE disrupted multiple events at the Summer Board Meeting of the California Poultry Federation, a trade association representing commercial chicken and turkey producers across the state. Among CPF's twenty board members are three executives from Petaluma Poultry, the California subsidiary of national poultry giant Perdue Foods, where DxE investigators have documented widespread violations of animal cruelty laws since 2018.
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.
