As anticipated, activists gathered in Berkeley, Calif., last month for Direct Action Everywhere’s (DXE) Animal Liberation Conference. Organizers haven’t shared an official attendance number, though it doesn’t seem like the conference attracted the 1,000-plus participants that planners were hoping for.

The conference was heavily focused on the “Right to Rescue” campaign, which DXE describes as “building support for animal rescue and ultimately, to establish a legal right to rescue animals from distress and exploitation.” According to DXE, “14 US states have laws that allow the rescue of dogs from hot cars” and they wish to “extend these laws to apply to animals of any species in need of rescue, including in factory farms and animal experimentation facilities.” Most speakers at the conference tied their content back to the “Right to Rescue,” including many references to the recent and upcoming trials stemming from previous “Open Rescues” (entering farms and plants and stealing livestock and poultry).

One panel included a juror who served on one of the trials, who discussed the jury’s decision to find activists “not guilty” (despite there being no dispute of the fact that they did enter property and take animals without permission). She stated, “To me the case was blatantly obvious, you had a little bit more swagger in your step and you were well prepared, I can’t even explain it there was just so much that was extremely obvious that you had done your homework, you were ready, and you guys came out guns blazing. You were ready to fight and the prosecution, on the other hand, it appeared to me they were just playing catch up the entire time.”

Cases being decided based on “swagger” should probably be a concern for the animal agriculture community going forward, as the emotion and passion of activists might play better than facts to juries who are most likely themselves not very informed about animal agriculture.

Conference content also focused on pressure campaigns targeting companies and other key decisionmakers. Speakers stated that “pressure campaigns rely on sustained efforts toward a specific outcome and involve building pressure over time” and “they go beyond an educational endeavor and seek to achieve both victory and a holistic change through sustained practices.” According to the pressure campaign workshop, individual campaign goals are small and tangible, such as “stopping a slaughterhouse from being built, getting a company to drop fur, getting an animal relocated to a sanctuary from a zoo” while they tie up to bigger picture visions, such as “a world without slaughterhouses, a world where animals are not exploited for fur, and a world where zoos have been shut down.”

As is precedent, the conference also included various “direct actions,” including the Animal Liberation March, in which activists carried a banner that read “Fight for the Right to Rescue.” During the march, a small group of activists entered a pet store and “rescued” four mice and a betta fish. Attendees also gathered in Berkeley to collect signatures in support of adding a measure to the ballot to “ban factory farms and CAFOs” in the city. The most concerning protests from our perspective targeted a poultry processing facility in Sonoma County that has been previously been a focus of DXE efforts. Activists arrived at the plant around 2 a.m. local time and a small group entered the plant and stole birds while others remained outside for around four hours demonstrating. The protest then moved on to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office, as they called upon her to prosecute the plant and its contract growers for alleged animal cruelty. In the final action of the event, conference attendees protested at a local grocery chain that they claim sources chicken from the plant.

All in all, the conference and related protests seemed to gather less media attention and social media chatter than previous years, which very few people watching the protest livestreams. This is unlikely to deter DXE from continued efforts, as an “Open Rescue Experience” workshop (that required signing a “non infiltration agreement” to attend) was a centerpiece of the conference. Farms, plants, research facilitates and all other locations housing animals should be on alert for newly “trained” activists to attempt to conduct “investigation” and “rescue” efforts as part of pressure campaigns targeting brands, legislators and other key decisionmakers.

Activists amp up plans for 'open rescue'

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