A Woman Rescued Birds Facing Death in a Industrial Farm. Did It Constitute a Rescue or a Criminal Act?
One weekday afternoon in the end of September, the University of California, Berkeley attendee emerged from a court in California's Santa Rosa. Surrounded by her lawyers, she walked quickly through the courthouse corridors, past more than 100 prospective jurors.
Fixed on her formal coat was a miniature poultry pin, shining on her collar.
This marked the final stages of picking jurors for Rosenberg’s trial. She stood accused of two lesser charges for unauthorized entry and one for tampering with a vehicle, as well as a serious conspiracy allegation. Should she be found guilty, she could spend up to over four years in prison.
This isn't about who did it … It’s a whydunit.
The facts at the center of the case were agreed upon. Shortly after midnight on June 13, 2023, the group participants of the organization Direct Action Everywhere drove to a poultry processing plant, a slaughterhouse about a short drive north of the Bay Area. Dressed like staff, they came across a vehicle filled with thousands of live chickens packed into crates. They removed four chickens, secured them in pails and departed.
The events were uncontested because the group members had shared video footage of what they had done. “It’s not a whodunit,” her attorney, the defense lawyer, often states. “It’s a whydunit.”
After leaving the slaughterhouse, the group inspected the birds – whom they named four named hens - more thoroughly. Zoe claims they were covered in waste and experiencing cuts and scrapes.
Her attorney clarified in the courtroom that her aim was not to steal but to provide assistance. The jury members would be required to judge, practically, the limits of compassion before it turns illegal.
Raised by a vet, She spent her childhood on a sizable property in San Luis Obispo county, California, in the company of a menagerie of creatures.
During her childhood, the they obtained poultry at home. She remembers clearly their names without pausing: her feathered friends. Until then, She held the widespread belief that poultry weren't intelligent, but interacting with them shifted her opinion. “I discovered they have distinct characters and that they are intelligent and inquisitive, and that their existence matters deeply.”
A couple of years after, Rosenberg watched an internet clip of activists entering a large poultry operation in overseas and taking birds. It was the first time gotten a glimpse a commercial farm, and she was appalled at the situation: thousands upon thousands of hens packed tightly into cages. This also introduced her to the concept of “open rescue”, the phrase employed by advocates to explain actions in which they infiltrate factory farms or scientific centers and rescue suffering beings. They disclose their activities, frequently sharing videos of their actions.
Once she saw it, She quickly decided that was something she wanted to do, and she emailed the director of the organization responsible. (“They didn't know my age,” Zoe remembered.) A year later, in that year, she established the San Luis Obispo chapter of the organization, a recently formed advocacy group.
Throughout time, animal rights groups have developed an image for using aggressive methods – including efforts from the group equating eating meat with historical atrocities or publicity grabs using fake blood. The logic is simple: shock value is required to shake societal indifference about livestock pain. But the result is often the opposite: alienating the public. Where meat consumption is standard, numerous view these actions as a direct criticism – and sense blame, not enlightenment.
DxE follows in this tradition; they have staged protests at a retail store in the city and caused a disturbance at the popular eatery the establishment.
Yet, their defining operation has been publicized rescues. From the activists’ perspective, an advantage of this approach is that it goes beyond raising awareness to an wrongdoing – it seeks, to some extent, to address it. It focuses on the industry rather than implicating individual consumers, and allows a look into the secret realm of animal agriculture.
“Our legal battles are a means to ask the jury to a group of peers of our peers, and to the public via news outlets,” said Cassie King, an activist. “Is it a crime, or is it the right thing to do, to rescue an animal that is suffering in a industrial facility?”
At present, DxE activists note, there are “right to rescue” laws in California and numerous states offering immunity if they access a vehicle to remove an endangered animal. The claim is that the identical logic should apply to all animals in need.
From 2014 onward, per the group, members of the group have been involved in dozens of rescues. In recent times, rescuers have removed young pigs from a commercial operation; two chickens from a transport vehicle near a processing plant in Merced county; and canines from a lab and breeding center in WI. Once the creatures are taken, the activists provide them with veterinary care and place them in new homes.
The proprietor runs his family's farm with his sibling in the area. His family has owned the farm for 113 years, he told me. The farm focuses on poultry with just under 1 million chickens, housed in about two dozen buildings. The business, which is powered by more than 2,500 solar panels, also turns the chickens’ manure into organic fertilizer.
In May 2018, the group conducted a significant event on Weber's land. A large group appeared to demonstrate. A subset invaded the farm and {broke into a chicken house|accessed a poultry building|entered a coop
