Feature Archives

Direct Action Everywhere and co-founder Wayne Hsiung, along with dozens of unnamed individuals, are forbidden from stepping on Whole Foods property in Berkeley. On September 21, the Alameda County Superior Court granted a restraining order seeking to stop protests against the company. Whole Foods had sought to ban protests on its property throughout the entire state. Despite the court ruling, "Occupy Whole Foods" is proceeding as planned September 23-29.

Responding to undercover video footage of cruelty, activists with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) marched to a Petaluma factory farm which supplies eggs to Whole Foods on July 30. Over twenty police officers and Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies were present to deny protesters access to the facility. Activists then marched five miles to the Petaluma Whole Foods location, which sells the farm’s eggs bearing misleading animal welfare labeling.

Approximately 500 animal rights activists organized by the Direct Action Everywhere network staged a non-violent vigil in defense of caged and tortured chickens on May 29. The group was attempting a rescue operation at Sunrise Farms, an industrial egg facility in Petaluma. Thirty-nine people were arrested by local law enforcement after they attempted to enter the farm to document conditions and demand the transfer of sick or mistreated birds.

The California Superior Court has ruled that Monterey County’s contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program to kill predators and other native wildlife violates state law. The decision responds to a lawsuit filed by animal protection and conservation organizations. The court concluded that Monterey County violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by failing to analyze the environmental impacts before renewing the controversial program, which has shot, trapped and snared thousands of animals in the county in recent years.

In an area in the Pine Nut Mountains east of Gardnerville, Nevada there is a wild horse herd known as the Fish Spring’s herd. This herd has many bands in it, including the Blue’s band, Blondies band, Zorro’s band, Socks band, and Rogue’s band. The bands are named after the lead stallion. There are so few wild horses on that range that wild horse advocates, photographers, and locals name the horses. Wild horses love their families and their freedom, but after they are rounded-up they lose all of that. When the Bureau of Land Management decides the amount of horses exceed the appropriate management area, they organize the rounding up of the excess horses.

Commercial Dungeness crab gear entangled a record number of whales in 2016, contributing to a third straight record-breaking year for entanglements along the U.S. West Coast, according to information released this week by the National Marine Fisheries Service. While whale entanglements are reported up and down the coast, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary has recently seen the highest number of entanglements. “Whales are suffering slow, painful deaths because there are too many crab traps in Monterey Bay,” said Catherine Kilduff of the Center for Biological Diversity.

On December 6, the Kern County Board of Supervisors approved Tejon Ranch Company’s disastrous Grapevine project, despite the harm the project will do to wildlife and nearby communities. The 8,000-acre development will straddle the San Joaquin Valley and Tehachapi Mountains and create a new city of up to 12,000 dwelling units and up to 5.1 million square feet of commercial real estate. The project will destroy habitat for the endangered San Joaquin kit fox, blunt-nosed leopard lizard, and threatened San Joaquin antelope squirrel, along with up to 36 other rare and imperiled species.