Berkeley Animal Rights Activist Found Guilty in Sonoma Chicken Theft Case

UC Berkeley student and animal rights activist Zoe Rosenberg has been found guilty of all counts, including felony conspiracy, after taking four chickens from a Sonoma County poultry facility two years ago.

She could now face up to four and a half years in prison for her role in the 2023 heist, which her attorneys tried to paint as a “rescue” of mistreated, bruised and scratched-up animals. She will be sentenced on Dec. 3.

Whether Rosenberg, 23, took the chickens from Petaluma Poultry was not in question — video footage captured by animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, where Rosenberg is an organizer, showed her enter the farm in protective gear, pluck four chickens from crates on a truck bed and carry them off of the property.

Instead, her three-week trial, which brought national attention to the issues of factory farming and animal welfare, focused primarily on intent. Rosenberg’s attorneys tried to persuade the jury that her goal was not to break the law but to “help” birds that Rosenberg said were sick, scratched and bruised, while prosecutors argued the theft was a felony that goes beyond animal welfare.

“It’s not a whodunit, it’s really a whydunit,” Chris Carraway, Rosenberg’s lawyer, told KQED ahead of her trial’s opening in September. “Zoe believed that this conduct was permissible under the circumstances.”

The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office alleged that Rosenberg, an organizer for animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, visited Petaluma Poultry multiple times without authorization, and tagged a dozen farm delivery vehicles with GPS trackers, in the spring of 2023.

In June of that year, prosecutors said, she entered the farm in protective gear, examined crates of chickens on a truck bed, and placed four in a red bucket while about 50 DxE activists rallied outside. The incident was captured in video footage, viewed by KQED.

Rosenberg’s attorneys, Carraway and Kevin Little, tried to posit that her actions came after efforts to report mistreatment at Petaluma Poultry to local authorities, and that she did not have criminal intent when she took the chickens off the property.

But the jury disagreed, finding her guilty on all counts Wednesday, including felony conspiracy, as well as the two misdemeanors for trespassing on various occasions and a third for tampering with a vehicle or its contents.

The decision could have reverberating effects throughout the country, as DxE has escalated such missions — referred to as “open rescues” — in recent years.

Animal activists have said they’re taking animals from farms where they believe they’re suffering, and at least two juries in recent related cases seemed to agree. Activists in Utah and Merced County were  cleared of wrongdoing following similar actions, though a Sonoma County court found DxE co-founder Wayne Hsiung guilty of felony conspiracy in 2023 for actions he took during Sonoma County farm protests in 2018 and 2019.

When asked on the stand last week if she wants open rescue “to be something that happens everywhere,” Rosenberg told prosecutors: “Yes.”

Rosenberg’s defense team is expected to appeal, creating the opportunity to set a legal precedent for the practice.

Sonoma County farmers have called DxE “extremist,” and condemned the use of open rescue as dangerous and unlawful.

“Having to deal with a bunch of activists that are trying to break into your operation, are putting tracking devices on farm vehicles so they can see where the farm vehicles are — that goes beyond the line,” said Mike Weber, who co-owns a chicken farm in Petaluma targeted by DxE in 2018. “That has nothing to do with animal welfare. I’d like to see that come to an end.”

Rosenberg’s lawyers had also tried to downplay her involvement in the incident, relying on testimony from former DxE activist, Raven Deerbrook, who was Rosenberg’s co-defendant before reaching a plea deal over the summer. Deerbrook told the jury that she had been investigating conditions and Petaluma Poultry prior to Rosenberg’s involvement, and spearheaded the series of break-ins that led to the chicken capture, the Press Democrat reported.

Deerbrook testified that she placed the GPS trackers, used bolt cutters to get through a fence and brought the buckets used to transport the chickens. She pled no contest to two misdemeanor charges in June.

But prosecutors have pointed to a long history of similar activism by Rosenberg. Deputy District Attorney Matt Hobson showed the jury photos of her pouring fake blood on the floor of a Safeway and posing in red-hued water in a fountain at UC Berkeley, holding a sign that said “UC Berkeley drop factory farms,” the Press Democrat reported.

Rosenberg was also previously arrested following a 2022 NBA playoff game, where she chained herself to a basketball hoop in protest of former Minnesota Timberwolves’ owner Glen Taylor. Direct Action Everywhere claimed responsibility for that protest as part of ongoing efforts to get Taylor to step down over his financial backing of an Iowa-based egg farm they say participated in animal cruelty.

“The ongoing prosecution is not about silencing speech — it is about holding accountable a pattern of calculated, unlawful activity,” a Petaluma Poultry spokesperson said in a statement.

Rosenberg was not taken into custody following the decision, but Judge Kenneth Gnoss mandated that she wear a GPS-equipped ankle monitor and stay 500 feet from Petaluma Poultry and all Perdue facilities. She was also ordered not to contact six individuals believed to be fellow activists.

DxE said on appeal, Rosenberg’s team will fight for permission to include more evidence on animal cruelty, and to make a necessity defense, or argument that Rosenberg’s actions were necessary to prevent imminent harm. According to the Press Democrat, they were barred ahead of this trial.

The organization said the four chickens, who Rosenberg renamed Poppy, Ivy, Aster and Azalea, were safe at a “sanctuary for rescued animals.”

“I will not apologize for taking sick, neglected animals to get medical care,” Rosenberg said in a statement following her conviction.

Now that her trial is over, Rosenberg said she plans to focus on reporting alleged crimes and safety violations at Petaluma Poultry.

“I hope that they will use the resources that they now have to investigate the real crime and to help real animals whose safety is threatened,” she told reporters Thursday. “If they want to put me in jail, fine, but please give these animals the justice that they deserve.”

KQED’s Dana Cronin and Gabe Meline contributed to this report.