Animal Activist Zoe Rosenberg Guilty In Perdue Slaughterhouse Chicken Rescue

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — A jury convicted animal activist Zoe Rosenberg today of a felony for taking four chickens from a Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse.

The jury convicted Rosenberg of felony conspiracy and three misdemeanors after a six-week trial for the June 2023 incident in which Rosenberg took four chickens from a Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse that supplies chickens to Perdue Farms.

Rosenberg will be sentenced on Dec. 3 and faces up to five years in prison.

After the verdict, she said she is inspired by the movement to keep working for abused animals, even if she is convicted.

Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez said the jury reached the right verdict. "No one is above the law," she said.

Rosenberg's attorney, Chris Carraway, said the verdict was disappointing.

“Sonoma County spent over six weeks and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to protect a multi-billion-dollar corporation from the rescue of four chickens worth less than $25,” Carraway said in a statement. “No doubt, the District Attorney’s office would never have spent a fraction of this time or money if the chickens had been dead in a supermarket meat case."

Rosenberg testified that she disguised herself as a Petaluma Poultry worker, using a fake badge and earpiece, to document conditions in the slaughterhouse.

The issue was why she decided to do so.

She said the chickens, which she later named Poppy, Ivy, Aster and Azalea, were covered in scratches, bruises and parasites.

“Zoe really believed to her core that these chickens were suffering and that sincere belief guided her conduct to an act of compassion, an act of rescue,” Carraway said.

After the verdict was announced, Rosenberg and a group of activists with Direct Action Everywhere — or DxE — walked from the courthouse to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office to file a report about the conditions at Petaluma Poultry.

"We're not going away," a member of DxE, Andy Bunnell, said. "We're committed to the cause."
Carraway and Sonoma County D.A. Matt Hobson finished final arguments Tuesday.

SEE MORE: Trial of Animal Activist, Zoe Rosenberg, Begins Monday In Sonoma County