On Nov. 5, a small group of local activists gathered to deliver a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Outside the Attorney General’s Fresno satellite office, they shouted their pleas for Bonta to prosecute animal cruelty at factory farms across California. Their signs advertised perdueabuse.com and pleaded that Bonta “Prosecute Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry.”
Petaluma Poultry is owned by Perdue Farms, the fourth largest poultry supplier in the nation. It supplies chicken that Trader Joe’s sells under its own brand. Fresno County animal rights activists have previously protested at the Trader Joe’s locations in Fresno and Clovis, calling for Trader Joe’s to drop Petaluma Poultry.
The letter was delivered to an employee at the satellite office at the start of the protest and expressed “serious concerns about criminal animal cruelty going unaddressed at factory farms and slaughterhouses across California, particularly in Sonoma County and related to Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry.”
Attached was a report documenting conditions uncovered from years of investigations at Petaluma Poultry farms and slaughterhouses, including evidence of chickens being boiled alive, unable to walk, suffering from several infections, and covered in wounds and feces. It called on Bonta’s office to “take action however you can to uphold California’s animal cruelty laws.”
The Nov. 5 protest was organized by grassroots animal rights organization Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) as part of a statewide series of actions at the Attorney General’s offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno and Sacramento. It came in response to the Oct. 29 conviction of 23-year-old animal rescuer Zoe Rosenberg. Along with other DxE investigators, Rosenberg documented the conditions of chickens in Petaluma Poultry farms and slaughterhouses.
In 2023, Rosenberg openly took four chickens from a Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse truck in Sonoma County. She immediately found veterinary care for the birds and brought evidence of the conditions at Petaluma Poultry farms and slaughterhouses to the Sheriff’s Office so that Petaluma Poultry could be prosecuted for illegal animal cruelty under California Penal Code 597(b). Instead, the Sonoma County district attorney chose to prosecute Zoe. On Oct. 29, after a seven-week trial, she was convicted of felony conspiracy and three misdemeanors.
In a statement posted on the Sonoma County District Attorney’s website, District Attorney Carla Rodriguez said, “While we respect everyone’s right to free expression, it is unlawful to trespass, disrupt legitimate businesses, and endanger workers and animals in pursuit of a political or social agenda.”
Herb Frerichs, general counsel to Petaluma Poultry, said in an online statement, “The jury’s verdict makes it clear: personal beliefs don’t justify breaking the law.”
Zoe, on the other hand, maintains that she took the chickens in order to help them. According to Zoe in an interview with The Guardian, “My ideal outcome is honestly just whatever is best for the animals.”
Her legal team intended to use the necessity defense, arguing that the otherwise illegal act of trespassing was necessary in order to prevent further harm to the chickens. The judge blocked this defense, noting that allowing the necessity defense in this context would set a precedent for rescues at other farms and slaughterhouses.
Unsurprisingly, there is no mention of animal cruelty in the statements of the Sonoma County district attorney and Perdue Farms. As it stands, corporate interests are upheld, and exploitation deeply unpopular with the public rages on.
Fresno activists envision a better world. And so, on the misty afternoon of Nov. 5, they gathered and hoped for the top law officer in the state to hold Petaluma Poultry and other factory-farming corporations accountable.
Thank you for taking action for animals!