Vigil Outside Trader Joe's-Supplying Slaughterhouse following Chicken Rescuer Conviction

VIDEO: Activists Hold Vigil Outside Trader Joe's-Supplying Slaughterhouse in the Wake of Chicken Rescuer Conviction

PHOTOS & VIDEOS
(Credit: Direct Action Everywhere)

NOVEMBER 8, 2025, PETALUMA, CA - Activists with the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) held a vigil this afternoon at the Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse on Lakeville Highway in Petaluma. They displayed banners and signs reading “Prosecute Petaluma Poultry,” “Chickens Tortured Here,” and “PerdueAbuse.com.”

Petaluma Poultry is a “free range” and partially “organic” subsidiary of Perdue Foods, one of the four largest poultry producers in the United States. It supplies to major grocery chains including Trader Joe’s and Safeway.

Demonstrators faced traffic outside the east entrance of the slaughterhouse, where tandem-trucks filled with thousands of living chickens enter. Over 200,000 chickens are killed at the Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse each week. At vigils earlier this year, DxE activists have recorded footage of chickens with painful open wounds crowded inside cages on Petaluma Poultry transport trucks.

Today's vigil follows the conviction of DxE animal cruelty investigator Zoe Rosenberg on felony conspiracy to commit misdemeanor trespass for her rescue of four suffering chickens from the Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse.

"We come here to document the conditions of any bird we see because the public has a right to know the stories of the sick and injured baby chickens who Perdue sells under a free range, organic label," said Carla Cabral, who testified as an animal care expert witness at Ms. Rosenberg's trial. "That story is what Perdue Foods here is fighting so hard to suppress." By court order, Ms. Rosenberg can no longer have contact with Ms. Cabral, due to Ms. Cabral’s role helping care for the four rescued chickens.

During her trial, Ms. Rosenberg told jurors that she became interested in the Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse after reading about high rates of diseases at the facility in a story from The Press Democrat in 2022. The court prevented Ms. Rosenberg from showing the jury photos of slaughterhouse documents, including a tally sheet indicating that 76 birds had entered the scalding tank while still alive in just one day.

DxE is calling for Petaluma Poultry to be prosecuted for scalding birds alive, citing that California’s animal cruelty law prohibits inflicting unnecessary cruelty on an animal. Evidence collected by DxE also shows birds starving to death, unable to reach food and water at the company’s grow-out facilities, birds with untreated injuries on transport trucks, and dangerous rates of diseases at the slaughterhouse. 

“We have evidence of widespread abuse and neglect at Petaluma Poultry, including birds being scalded alive at the slaughterhouse,” said Zoe Rosenberg. “My prosecutors were successful in hiding certain evidence from the jury. They hope the convictions will discourage people from speaking up, but we will not stop asking the authorities for help until the abuse stops.”