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industrial agriculture
I Rescued 4 Chickens From Abuse; Now I’m the One Facing a Felony Trial
I refuse to accept that helping a few baby birds makes me a criminal, let alone a dangerous one.
Sep 09, 2025
As I write this, a GPS ankle monitor shows law enforcement exactly where I am. This invasive device has been strapped to my leg for nearly two years. It has come with me to family dinners, to doctors’ appointments, to university classes, and more. I have been forced to wear it in order to remain free pending a criminal trial, which begins next week. I face nearly half a decade in jail.
My trial is expected to last several weeks, though there is no doubt that I did what prosecutors say. My alleged crime? Taking less than $25 worth of chicken. This wouldn’t normally lead to felony charges or a government-monitored GPS tracking device. But, you see, the four chickens I took were alive.
In the city of Petaluma, about an hour north of San Francisco, nestled between a Subway and a Starbucks, lies a heavily guarded fortress. Nearly every night of the week, more than 40,000 live birds are driven through its gates. In the mornings, their deceased and dismembered bodies are wrapped in plastic, decorated with claims about sustainability, animal welfare, and a lack of antibiotics. Finally, they’re stamped with the brand names “Rocky the Free Range Chicken” and “Rosie the Organic Chicken.” By the time their bodies reenter the outside world, shipped to grocery stores like Safeway and Trader Joe’s, the birds have been thoroughly objectified, their suffering repackaged as ethical consumption.
This fortress is the Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse, a subsidiary of Perdue, one of the nation’s largest poultry producers. In important ways, Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry represents the worst of animal agriculture. Its branding is frighteningly deceptive, the company a master of manipulative marketing. Petaluma Poultry touts the supposed “luxuries” its chickens enjoy, posting seemingly staged videos of birds frolicking in the grass while, in reality, the birds live and die in factory farm conditions. Factory farming is widely known to be horrific, and companies like Petaluma Poultry represent a major obstacle to stopping it: They advertise animal suffering and slaughter as moral goods.
I know how birds at Petaluma live and die because I have been inside its facilities. In 2023, as an investigator with Direct Action Everywhere, I entered multiple Petaluma Poultry facilities. On these factory farms, I found chickens crowded together in filthy barns. One facility had mortality rates more than double the industry standard. Birds were suffering from severe neglect and dying from blood infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria. An investigation of the slaughterhouse found similar trends. One night, in April 2023, over 1,000 chickens from one shipment were condemned post-slaughter when workers opened them up and found their bodies full of infection.
Since 1993, Perdue has claimed its chickens “grow up healthy.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Of the multiple facilities I’ve been inside, I haven’t seen a single chicken I’d describe with such a word. Chickens in the meat industry are systemically unhealthy. They’ve been genetically manipulated to grow three times faster and larger than natural. Their legs collapse as they struggle to hold their own weight. Their hearts fail, and their feet develop pressure sores. The poor health of the birds in Petaluma Poultry facilities is exacerbated by their poor housing conditions and lack of medical care.
In court, I will view myself simply as a representative, a body and a voice, for all of the chickens who have been wronged by Perdue, and by the animal agriculture industry as a whole.
Much of what I have documented at Petaluma Poultry’s facilities is criminal animal cruelty in the state of California. However, repeated reports to law enforcement, over multiple years, have not resulted in any enforcement. Haunted by the knowledge of the immense violence within, I entered Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse on June 13, 2023. Partially disguised as a worker, I stepped into the cool night and approached a truck stacked high with crates crammed full with baby chickens. I rescued four of them, including one I named Poppy, who had an injured toe, a body covered in scratches, and intestines filled with parasites. I got all four birds veterinary care and shared their stories, asking members of the public to join me in calling for immediate action from law enforcement.
The rescue of four little hens finally sparked law enforcement intervention. However, instead of investigating years of reported criminal animal cruelty, law enforcement set off on a mission to gather evidence on what was likely the first act of compassion to be carried out within the slaughterhouse’s carefully constructed walls—and to charge me with crimes.
Months after the rescue, as I was walking toward the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office to once again file a report of documented animal cruelty at Petaluma Poultry, I was placed in handcuffs and arrested on seven counts of felony conspiracy. I was told about warrants obtained to access my cell-phone data and other records. Though some charges have since been dismissed or consolidated, I still face one felony, three misdemeanors, and nearly five years in jail. I have been forced to wear a GPS ankle monitor and adhere to other harsh pretrial release conditions for nearly two years because the government is afraid I might rescue more birds.
Why? It’s certainly not the monetary value of the birds. The value of a relatively healthy chicken raised in agriculture is only a few dollars, and the routine deaths of thousands before they even reach slaughter is deemed the cost of business. Moreover, there are so many animals in these facilities, it is unlikely anyone would have even noticed four chickens were gone if I had not publicized it. Instead, what is threatening is the idea inherent in my actions: that animals are individuals with lives worth living.
I’m a 23-year-old university student. I’ve been rescuing animals from abuse since the age of 11, when I founded my nonprofit, Happy Hen Animal Sanctuary. In the past, I’ve been able to work with law enforcement. Together, we’ve rescued roosters from illegal cockfighting rings and placed farmed animals in loving forever homes. But now, for saving four chickens, my entire future is at stake.
As I’ve gone to court over the past 20 months, represented by the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, it has become obvious that the prosecutors are trying to make an example out of me to scare other concerned members of the public. But that’s okay. Let me be an example. Let me be an example of courage in the face of repression and of compassion in the face of violence. Let me be an example of just how impossible it will be to stop the movement for animal rights.
I will not apologize for my actions. I will not hang my head in shame. I refuse to accept that helping a few baby birds makes me a criminal, let alone a dangerous one. To apologize would be to say that Poppy, Ivy, Aster, and Azalea deserved the cruelty inflicted on them. It would be to say they deserved to shiver in a crate, covered in scrapes and bruises, as they were eaten alive by parasites. Any apology would be a lie. I am not sorry I saved their lives.
Next week, I will be taking this case to trial. In court, I will view myself simply as a representative, a body and a voice, for all of the chickens who have been wronged by Perdue, and by the animal agriculture industry as a whole. I will tell the jury about the birds I rescued, and the birds failed by Sonoma County law enforcement.
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JBS Doesn’t Deserve a Place in Our Markets or on Our Plates
Even in industrial meat production, an industry known for its corruption and poor conditions, JBS stands out for the scope and severity of its violations.
Aug 20, 2025
Earlier this summer, JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking corporation, was approved to list on the New York Stock Exchange. The move was celebrated in business media as a milestone of corporate growth and a testament to the leadership of JBS’ 33-year-old CEO of their US division Wesley Batista Filho. But behind the headlines lies a far more troubling story, one of exploitation, impunity, and environmental devastation that should not be ignored.
Turning a blind eye to abuses at a company as large and powerful as JBS is dangerous, with the harms extending far beyond the meatpacking industry. Consumers, advocates, and investors must stop normalizing this behavior. We have the power and the responsibility to demand better.
JBS has built its empire not through innovation or sustainability, but through exploitation. Price fixing, child labor, wage theft, bribery, tax avoidance, deforestation, animal cruelty—these are not isolated scandals. They are core ingredients of JBS’ business model. And while many corporations would work to correct and address their abuses, JBS has repeatedly treated legal penalties and reputational damage as just another cost of doing business.
Even in industrial meat production, an industry known for its corruption and poor conditions, JBS stands out for the scope and severity of its violations. The company recently agreed to pay over $80 million to settle a beef price-fixing lawsuit. Earlier this year, the company was cited for illegally employing migrant children, some as young as 13, on overnight cleaning shifts in its slaughterhouses. Meanwhile, workers across its global operations report being injured, silenced, or discarded when they speak up.
We must stop sending the message that corporations can endanger workers, break the law, and destroy the environment without consequence, as long as they remain profitable.
A recent federal lawsuit filed by Salima Jandali, a former safety trainer at JBS’ Greeley, Colorado plant, alleges that she faced racial and religious harassment, was retaliated against for raising safety concerns, and was pressured to falsify injury reports. Her allegations closely mirror a separate class action lawsuit filed by Black workers at another JBS facility in Pennsylvania who describe enduring racist slurs, being passed over for promotions, and working in unsafe conditions.
Beyond the factory floor, JBS has long been linked to illegal deforestation and environmental destruction in the Amazon, both directly through its supply chains and indirectly through pressure on local ecosystems. The company’s climate footprint is staggering, with greenhouse gas emissions that rival those of entire countries. And yet, instead of reckoning with this impact, JBS continues to expand production and avoid accountability.
In Brazil, where the company is headquartered, the recent passage of most of the so-called “devastation bill” further weakens environmental safeguards and accelerates the damage. Now that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva approved the bill, even with some environmental restrictions, it continues to grant free rein to agribusiness giants like JBS that profit from the destruction of forests and the displacement of Indigenous communities.
This is not a case of a few bad actors or isolated scandals. JBS has thrived because of weak enforcement, political influence, and a financial system that rewards short-term gains over long-term responsibility.
Just months before its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) debut, JBS subsidiary Pilgrim’s Pride made a $5 million donation to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. This is the context in which JBS was allowed to access US capital markets. Even though top proxy advisory firms, including Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, urged shareholders to vote against the listing, citing serious governance concerns and lack of transparency, their warnings were ignored, and just this June, JBS began trading on the NYSE.
JBS now generates over $39 billion a year from its US operations alone, profits that are often routed through tax havens in Luxembourg, Malta, and the Netherlands. And when caught breaking the law, JBS often faces only minor consequences that rarely match the scale of the harm.
We must stop sending the message that corporations can endanger workers, break the law, and destroy the environment without consequence, as long as they remain profitable. There is another path forward. Consumers, advocates, and investors need to reject this status quo and demand change.
That starts with consumers actively choosing not to buy JBS products. Investors can divest from JBS and urge their asset managers to do the same. Universities, pension funds, and retirement plans can reexamine whether their portfolios are supporting a company with this kind of track record. At the same time, policymakers must push for stronger corporate accountability, not just in meatpacking, but across industries that harm people and the planet.
JBS should not be rewarded with more money, more access, and more influence. Instead, we must make JBS the example and let it serve as a warning about the costs of putting profit above all else. The future of our food system, our environment, and our communities depends on drawing the line and holding it.
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Development Banks’ Factory Farm Investments Harm the Climate and Local Communities
Despite clear evidence of the harms of industrial livestock, new research showed that in 2024, 11 leading international finance institutions invested $1.23 billion in factory farming and wider industrial animal agriculture supply chains.
Jul 06, 2025
The World Bank’s mission is to “create a world free of poverty on a livable planet.” However, the institution, along with its peer development partners, pumps billions of dollars into factory farming, appearing to turn a blind eye to the significant harm it causes.
We cannot meet the 1.5°C Paris agreement goal without reducing emissions from livestock. Animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate breakdown; already responsible for around 16% of global greenhouse gas emissions and set to rise.
Factory farming is also tearing apart our thriving ecosystems. In Latin America, high demand for industrial grazing pasture and land for growing animal feed has fueled devastating deforestation: 84% of all Latin America’s forest loss in the last 50 years can be attributed to land claimed for livestock farming. Factory farming also pollutes soils and freshwater sources that wild animals and rural communities rely on.
Development banks tasked with tackling poverty and climate change owe it to current and future generations to use their investments to help spur the transition toward more sustainable diets and forms of food production.
Yet despite clear evidence of the harms of industrial livestock, new research I conducted for the Stop Financing Factory Farming Coalition (S3F), based on data from the Early Warning System, showed that in 2024, 11 leading international finance institutions (IFI) invested $1.23 billion in factory farming and wider industrial animal agriculture supply chains. This is five times more than what they spend on more sustainable non-industrial animal agriculture projects. The World Bank and its private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), were together responsible for over half the funding for industrial animal agriculture.
One of the investments IFC made last year was a $40 million loan to build a soybean crushing plant in Bangladesh, used to mass-produce animal feed. The soybeans will require an estimated 354,000 hectares of land annually to be grown, and will be sourced from Brazil and Argentina where soy production is associated with destruction of sensitive ecosystems. Communities living near the plant have documented the existing and potential impacts such as the contamination of coastal waters and freshwater sources, which would consequently lead to a reduction in the local fish stocks that local communities rely on to guarantee their livelihoods, and brought their concerns in front of representatives of the U.S. government.
Over the last 20 years, IFC has also made a number of investments in Pronaca, the largest food producer in Ecuador, to expand its factory farm operations. The company has built pig and poultry farms in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, a region home to natural forest and Indigenous Peoples. Local Indigenous communities documented how the farms have polluted water resources that are traditionally used to sustain their livelihoods, forcing community members to migrate to preserve their traditional cultures.
Other IFIs have also made harmful investments. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) boldly claims all its investments have been Paris-aligned since January 2023; however, recent spending to expand multinational fast food chains in Eastern Europe seem to show a different scenario. During the first half of 2025, the EBRD has provided $10 million for the expansion of KFC and Taco Bell restaurants in the Western Balkans, and proposed an equity investment of $46 million for the expansion of Burger King and Louisiana Popeyes in Poland, Romania, and Czech Republic.
The latter investment would have led to the opening of 600 restaurants in the region, with large adverse impacts in terms of public health and emissions of greenhouse gases. Restaurant Brands International, which owns Burger King and Popeyes, reported approximately 29 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions along its value chain in 2024, more than the entire emissions of Northern Ireland. Thankfully, following civil society pressure, the investment was not approved by the EBRD’s Board of Directors.
While the overall picture is bleak, there is real room for hope. Between 2023 and 2024, IFI investments in factory farming nearly halved, and investments in more sustainable approaches tripled, from $77 million to US$244 million. Examples of promising investments include the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency and the Inter-American Development Bank providing support to smallholder farmers using climate-friendly techniques.
This is clearly good news; however, it remains too early to tell if these figures are a one-off blip, or part of a longer-term trend. My hope is that the next round of investment data will show that harmful investments have dropped further—if not stopped completely—and more sustainable ones additionally increased.
Development banks tasked with tackling poverty and climate change owe it to current and future generations to use their investments to help spur the transition toward more sustainable diets and forms of food production, rather than replicating and expanding the broken systems that are wrecking our planet. By only investing in animal agriculture projects that are sustainable—following agroecological principles such as promoting species diversity and using nature’s resources efficiently—banks can help move us closer toward “a world free of poverty on a livable planet.”
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