A Woman Removed Birds That Were Going to Die in a Commercial Farm. Was It a Rescue or a Crime?
On a September afternoon in September's final days, Zoe Rosenberg left a tribunal in California's Santa Rosa. Flanked by her legal team, she hurried through the courthouse corridors, beyond dozens of prospective jurors.
Pinned to her black blazer was a miniature poultry pin, sparkling on her jacket.
These were the concluding moments of choosing the jury for Rosenberg’s trial. She confronted two misdemeanor charges for trespassing and a charge related to meddling with a truck, as well as a serious conspiracy allegation. If the verdict goes against her, she could spend up to over four years in jail.
The question isn't the perpetrator … The focus is on the reason.
The central events of the legal matter were uncontested. Just past midnight on a June night in 2023, Zoe and fellow activists of the organization DxE traveled to a poultry processing plant, a slaughterhouse about 64 kilometers north of the Bay Area. Disguised as workers, they encountered a truck filled with countless poultry confined in cages. They took four birds, secured them in pails and departed.
These details were agreed because Zoe and her companions had subsequently released film clips of their actions. “It’s not a whodunit,” the legal counsel, Chris Carraway, frequently remarks. “It's about the motivation.”
After leaving the slaughterhouse, the rescuers checked the chickens – which they called four named hens - in greater detail. Rosenberg says they were covered in waste and suffering from wounds and abrasions.
The lawyer argued in legal proceedings that Zoe's purpose was not to commit theft but to provide assistance. The panel would be asked to determine, essentially, where empathy ends before it crosses into criminality.
The daughter of a veterinarian, Zoe was raised on 40 acres in California's San Luis Obispo, CA, surrounded by cats, dogs, goats, guinea pigs and rabbits.
At age nine, the they obtained poultry at home. She recalls easily their identities without pausing: Eddie, Chirp, Olive, Herki, Red, Daisy and Popcorn. Until then, She held the widespread belief that birds lacked smarts, but getting to know them altered her perspective. “I discovered they have unique personalities and that they are intelligent and inquisitive, and that their lives are really, really valuable.”
Two years later, Rosenberg watched an digital recording of activists entering a major egg producer in Australia and removing chickens. This was her initial exposure seen inside a factory farm, and she was shocked by the conditions: countless birds confined in enclosures. It was also her introduction to the idea of open rescue, the term activists use to detail missions in which they infiltrate factory farms or research facilities and take creatures in need. They publicize their actions, often posting footage of their actions.
Once she saw it, Zoe instantly realized that she desired to participate, and she reached out to the head of the activist collective. (“They didn't know my age,” Zoe remembered.) A year later, in 2015, she started the regional group of Direct Action Everywhere, a then new advocacy group.
Over the years, advocacy organizations have gained a reputation for using direct actions – like efforts from the group comparing meat consumption to the Holocaust or dramatic acts with simulated gore. The idea is clear: a jolt is needed to jolt people out of complacency about creature distress. But the result is often the opposite: alienating the public. Where meat consumption is standard, many see such protests as a direct criticism – and experience condemnation, not conversion.
The group continues this approach; they have staged protests at a retail store in the city and caused a disturbance at the renowned dining spot Chez Panisse.
However, their hallmark action has been “open rescues”. According to the group, an advantage of this approach is that it goes beyond raising awareness to an unfairness – it attempts, in a small way, to remedy the situation. It also targets the business rather than blaming everyday people, and offers a glimpse into the unseen environment of meat production.
“Our legal battles are a method to present the issue to a randomly selected jury of our community members, and to others through the media,” said a group representative, the spokesperson. “Is it wrong, or is it the right thing to do, to save a creature who’s dying in a commercial operation?”
At present, the group points out, there are legal protections for rescuers in CA and 13 other states offering immunity if they break into a car to rescue a threatened creature. The claim is that the comparable reasoning should apply to all animals in need.
Since 2014, as stated by the representative, activists have conducted numerous missions. In the past few years, activists have taken two piglets from a Utah factory farm; a pair of birds from a transport vehicle outside a slaughterhouse in Merced county; and canines from a scientific site in WI. After removing the animals, the activists provide them with veterinary care and relocate them to safe environments.
A farmer operates Weber Family Farms with his sibling in Petaluma. The property has been inherited for many decades, he told me. They produce eggs with a large flock, located in various coops. The operation, which is powered by more than 2,500 solar panels, also recycles droppings for soil.
During May of 2018, protesters carried out a large-scale operation on Weber's land. A large group gathered to object. Some of them entered the premises and {broke into a chicken house|accessed a poultry building|entered a coop
