Perdue's Petaluma Poultry

Sonoma County, California

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Ask Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez to finally prosecute Petaluma Poultry for years of criminal animal cruelty. Plus, urge Trader Joe's to cut ties with Petaluma Poultry.

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Read the full investigatory report

For years, investigators with Direct Action Everywhere have been exposing criminal animal cruelty and rampant disease at factory farms in Sonoma County operated by Petaluma Poultry, a subsidiary of poultry giant Perdue Farms. Instead of prosecuting these companies, the Sonoma County District Attorney has gone after the whistleblowers and animal rescuers. On November 30, 2023, DxE investigator Zoe Rosenberg was arrested on multiple felony warrants and later charged with five felonies for the rescue of four sick chickens from Perdue's Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse in June 2023.

Zoe has been forced to wear a GPS ankle monitor and follow other strict pretrial release conditions for over a year. She has been barred from possessing chickens, ducks, or other fowl. Clearly, they do not want Zoe rescuing any more suffering animals.

After a back-and-forth where certain charges were dismissed, filed, and dismissed again, Zoe is now facing one felony conspiracy charge and four misdemeanors, including two types of trespass, tampering with a vehicle, and theft. She faces a potential maximum sentence of 5 and a half years in prison. Zoe's trial was supposed to begin in May, but it was delayed to September because the prosecutors requested more time to prepare. The #PerdueTrial will now start September 15, 2025, and it's expected to last 2-3 weeks. There is a pre-trial hearing set for June 13 to hear argument on defense's motion to use the affirmative defense of necessity, which applies when someone acts in an emergency situation in order to prevent a harm from happening, in this case to protect animals in need of urgent medical care and to prevent potential public health impacts to consumers.

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Dear District Attorney Rodriguez,

I urge you to prosecute animal cruelty, not animal rescue. National polls consistently show overwhelming public support for strong legal protection for animals. Yet, countless investigations have shown that animal-using industries routinely violate animal welfare laws with no repercussions. It is time for a change.

Your office should be working with whistleblowers and rescuers to protect animals from abuse. Prosecuting these good samaritans who expose animal mistreatment is wildly out of line with the values of the public. A 2015 Gallup poll¹ found that a third of Americans believe “animals deserve the exact same rights as people to be free from harm and exploitation,” a 2022 YouGov poll² found that nearly half of Americans believe that animal cruelty laws in the U.S. are not strict enough, and a 2024 poll by Positive Sum Strategies³ found that 68% of Americans believe it should not be a crime to take an animal out of an environment where they are being mistreated.

The same sentiments are evidenced by two recent acquittals of animal rescuers. In October 2022, a Utah jury issued a groundbreaking “not guilty” verdict⁴ for two DxE investigators who openly rescued sick piglets from a Smithfield Foods factory pig farm. In March 2023, a California jury acquitted⁵ two more DxE investigators of theft charges for rescuing two sick chickens from a slaughter truck.

In many situations, the law already clearly asserts that rescuing an animal is not a crime. 14 US states have passed “right to rescue” laws to provide civil or criminal protection for people who rescue distressed animals from motor vehicles. Moreover, the common law doctrine of legal necessity provides that it is a defense to a crime if the act was necessary to prevent some greater harm. Law professors, including property law expert Professor Kristen Stilt at Harvard, have opined⁶ that the necessity defense applies to open rescues at commercial animal operations.

Prominent journalists, organizations, and cities have also chimed in to support the right to rescue, including in this New York Times article⁷ headlined “Rescuing Farmed Animals from Cruelty Should be Legal.”

Your office’s resources could be much better spent investigating and stopping crimes against animals. It is essential to address the root cause of the problem rather than targeting those attempting to bring attention to it. All animals deserve to be rescued from situations of distress and exploitation.

Sincerely,

[Your name]

References:
1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/183275/say-animals-rights-people.aspx
2. https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/42696-american-support-strengthening-laws-animal-cruelty
3. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/eg07dfxhjq2n8vg6iejde/Positive-Sum-Strategies.pdf
4. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/science/animals-rights-piglets-smithfield.html
5. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23647682/factory-farming-dxe-criminal-trial-rescue
6. https://animal.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/DxE-Amicus-Brief.pdf
7. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/opinion/foster-farms-chicken-slaughterhouse-animal-cruelty.html

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Meet the Defendant

Zoe Rosenberg

Zoe is a UC Berkeley student, TEDx speaker, factory farm investigator, and animal rescuer. When she was 11 years old, she founded Happy Hen Animal Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization that has now saved over 1,000 neglected or abandoned animals.