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Appeals Court Overturns Convictions Against Animal Rights Activist Wayne Hsiung

May 1, 2026

Local News Matters

The court reversed the felony conspiracy charge and one misdemeanor trespass charge for Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, co-founder Wayne Hsiung, the organization said. The animal rights group said the court rejected the prosecutor’s argument that animals are to be categorically excluded from a “necessity defense.”

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PRESS

Appeals Court Overturns Convictions Against Animal Rights Activist Wayne Hsiung

May 1, 2026

Local News Matters

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PRESS

Court Overturns Animal Welfare Activist Wayne Hsiung’s Conviction on Two of Three Counts in Sonoma County Farm Incursion Case

April 30, 2026

The Press Democrat

“That the court has reversed the majority of Mr. Hsiung’s convictions just a matter of days after argument is a major rebuke to a trial that we have always insisted was riddled with legal and factual errors,” Justin Marceau, director of the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, said in a press release.

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PRESS

Court Overturns Animal Welfare Activist Wayne Hsiung’s Conviction on Two of Three Counts in Sonoma County Farm Incursion Case

April 30, 2026

The Press Democrat

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PRESS

How 2,000 Beagles Set the Animal Rights Movement on Fire

April 30, 2026

Vox

We can’t yet know what Ridglan will mean for animal rights’ momentum — the unprecedented scale of this rescue attempt, the ferocity of law enforcement’s response, and the seriousness of the criminal charges that movement leaders now face have been variously described to me by participants as electrifying and galvanizing for the cause, and also tragic and dangerous. It has been, if nothing else, a bold and bruising experiment in broadening the movement’s tent beyond the already converted, and carrying animal rights forward into the realm of mass politics.

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PRESS

How 2,000 Beagles Set the Animal Rights Movement on Fire

April 30, 2026

Vox

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BLOG

How Pepper Spray Can Save Puppies

April 22, 2026

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BLOG

How Pepper Spray Can Save Puppies

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.

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PRESS

Moby Is Donating His Profits from Coachella 2026 to Animal Rights Organizations

April 16, 2026

Billboard

The money Moby is making from these shows will go to four different animal rights organizations: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Humane League, Mercy for Animals and Direct Action Everywhere.

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PRESS

Moby Is Donating His Profits from Coachella 2026 to Animal Rights Organizations

April 16, 2026

Billboard

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PRESS

Animal Rights Activists Protest Turlock Goat Milk Over Alleged Cruelty of Supplier

April 13, 2026

The Modesto Bee

Cabral said she remembers seeing the hoof of one of the goats protruding from the dead pile. “It was like something out of ‘The Walking Dead,’” she said Saturday. “That image will stay with me.”

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PRESS

Animal Rights Activists Protest Turlock Goat Milk Over Alleged Cruelty of Supplier

April 13, 2026

The Modesto Bee

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PRESS RELEASE

VIDEO: Activists Protest at Meyenberg Goat Milk Plant, After Prosecution of Animal Cruelty Investigators

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.

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PRESS RELEASE

VIDEO: Activists Protest at Meyenberg Goat Milk Plant, After Prosecution of Animal Cruelty Investigators

April 11, 2026

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PRESS

Environmental Justice Meets Animal Rights

April 3, 2026

Fresno Community Alliance

At the intersection of eco-justice, animal rights and community advocacy, two nonprofits recently collaborated to hold a town hall about a factory farm expansion about six miles from the town center.

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PRESS

Environmental Justice Meets Animal Rights

April 3, 2026

Fresno Community Alliance

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PRESS

‘Crown Jewel’: Waterfront Park Could Replace Golden Gate Fields in $175M Deal

April 2, 2026

The Daily Californian

The track shuttered following financial and industry-related struggles. Animal welfare groups, namely the Bay Area chapter of Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, had also protested the track’s operations. Prior to the track’s closure, DxE routinely protested at the facility, held funerals for horses that died on site and created a petition to shut down the track, according to DxE spokesperson Cassie King.

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PRESS

‘Crown Jewel’: Waterfront Park Could Replace Golden Gate Fields in $175M Deal

April 2, 2026

The Daily Californian

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Our Top Press Hits

TOP PRESS

How the Farm Industry Spied on Animal Rights Activists and Pushed the FBI to Treat Them as Bioterrorists

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.

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TOP PRESS

How the FBI and Big Ag Started Treating Animal Rights Activists as Bioterrorists

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.

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TOP PRESS

This California Student Could Go to Prison for Taking Four Chickens. Was It a Crime or a ‘Rescue’?

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.

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TOP PRESS

These California and Colorado Ballot Measures Are Terrifying the Meat Industry

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.

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TOP PRESS

Secret Recordings Capture the Ugly Reality Inside a Denver Slaughterhouse

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.

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TOP PRESS

Sonoma Loves Its Farms. Activists Call Them Factories. Could a Ballot Measure Upend This County?

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.

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TOP PRESS

Groups Seek to Ban Large-Scale Animal Farming in Sonoma County

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.”

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TOP PRESS

An Animal-Rights Activist and the Problem of Political Despair

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.

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TOP PRESS

A California Town Will Vote on Banning Factory Farms. What Does That Mean for the Rest of the US?

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.

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DxE's Blog

BLOG

NEWS OF THE WEEK: Pacelle Out At HSUS, Dog Meat At The Olympics, Feb. 7, 2018 – Feb. 12, 2018

February 13, 2018

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BLOG

Why Open Rescue?

February 9, 2018

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BLOG

What do we want? Animal Liberation!

February 9, 2018

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BLOG

What the Egg Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know

February 9, 2018

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BLOG

NEWS OF THE WEEK: Monkeys Used For Diesel Fuel Tests, SHAC Activists Sentenced, Jan. 24, 2018 – Feb. 6, 2018

February 7, 2018

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BLOG

There’s No Such Thing as Sacred Meat

February 5, 2018

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BLOG

WHY CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE?

February 2, 2018

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BLOG

56 BILLION REASONS TO TAKE ACTION FOR ANIMALS

February 2, 2018

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BLOG

NEWS OF THE WEEK: Fur Ban In San Francisco, Chris Christie Hurts Animals, Jan. 16, 2018 – Jan. 23, 2018

January 26, 2018

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Our Press Releases

PRESS RELEASE

VIDEO: Activists Protest at Meyenberg Goat Milk Plant, After Prosecution of Animal Cruelty Investigators

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.

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PRESS RELEASE

Four People Charged with Felony Grand Theft for Rescuing Sick Goats from Whole Foods-Supplying Goat Dairy

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.

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PRESS RELEASE

Marin Grocer Good Earth Cuts Ties with Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry Amidst Animal Cruelty Concerns

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.

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PRESS RELEASE

VIDEO: Activists Protest Cruelty in CA Dairy Industry with Ten-Foot-Tall Milk Carton

March 1, 2026

The ten-foot milk carton showed a photo of a calf with the word "Missing" to underscore how the dairy industry routinely separates babies from their mothers on the day they are born.

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PRESS RELEASE

VIDEO: Dozens Hold Vigil at CA’s Largest Calf-Raising Factory Farm, Following Exposé of Calf Abuse

February 21, 2026

Drone footage published this week at FactoryFarmWatch.org shows calves being thrown to the ground, dragged and shot in the head at Grimmius Cattle Company

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PRESS RELEASE

Map of California Factory Farms Exposes Hidden Supply Chains Behind “Humane” Labels

February 17, 2026

The first-of-its-kind map at FactoryFarmWatch.org is the most comprehensive single source of information on CA's 1300+ industrial animal farms

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PRESS RELEASE

Hours After Completing House Arrest, Activist Negotiates Rescue of Chicken from Slaughter

February 11, 2026

After completing both phases of her court-ordered detention for rescuing four birds from Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse, animal rights activist Zoe Rosenberg’s first course of action was to travel to a chicken slaughterhouse in Stockton.

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PRESS RELEASE

Judge Throws Out Perdue’s Claims in Lawsuit Against Animal Activists

February 6, 2026

Sonoma County Judge Jane Gaskell struck both causes of action brought by the national poultry giant Perdue Foods in a lawsuit against Direct Action Everywhere (DxE). Judge Gaskell also struck these causes of action for Perdue executive Scott Fitzpatrick. Perdue is now removed from the case and only two causes of action remain for Fitzpatrick.

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PRESS RELEASE

VIDEO: Activists Rally at UC Berkeley Demanding a Pardon for Student Animal Rescuer

January 23, 2026

UC Berkeley students, alumni, and local residents held a “Free Zoe” rally and march on the UC Berkeley campus on Friday, demanding the pardon of animal rights activist Zoe Rosenberg, who is currently on house arrest.

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