Actor Joaquin Phoenix lends support to convicted Berkeley activist Zoe Rosenberg in Petaluma Poultry case
The latest twist came Monday in the high-profile case of animal welfare activist Zoe Rosenberg, who awaits sentencing for her role in taking four chickens from a Perdue Farms processing facility in Petaluma: a celebrity endorsement.
Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix, one of Hollywood’s most esteemed actors, released a statement through the group Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, urging the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office to prosecute Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry facility for “years of documented cruelty,” rather than focusing its attention on activists such as Rosenberg.
“Criminalizing people for rescuing suffering animals is a moral failure,” Phoenix wrote. “Compassion is not a crime. When individuals step in to save a life because the system has looked the other way, they should be supported — not prosecuted. We have to decide who we are as a society: one that protects the vulnerable, or one that punishes those who try.”
In addition to circulating the statement to media outlets, DxE posted it on Facebook and Instagram. By 3 p.m. Monday, the post had been shared more than 1,800 times, and had attracted nearly 2,000 comments, most of them supportive of Phoenix’s message.
Carla Rodriguez, the Sonoma County district attorney, said her office had not heard directly from the actor, and she had not spoken to him.
Rosenberg, a 23-year-old Cal student billed by Berkeley-based DxE as an “animal cruelty investigator,” was convicted Oct. 29 by a Sonoma County jury on charges of felony conspiracy and three misdemeanors. She is set to be sentenced Dec. 3 and could face up to 4½ years for her actions at the Petaluma Poultry processing plant during a 2023 incursion there by activists.
If it seems odd to see a movie star insinuate himself into the legal affairs of Sonoma County, it fits Phoenix’s lifelong support of animal welfare. He has been vegan since the age of 3.
When he won the Best Actor award for his dark portrayal of the title character in the movie “Joker,” he took the opportunity to speak out on animal agriculture.
“We go into the natural world, and we plunder it for its resources,” Phoenix told the audience in Hollywood while accepting his Oscar at the 92nd Academy Awards ceremony. “We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow, and when she gives birth, we steal her baby even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf, and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.”
The next day, Phoenix backed up his words with action. In partnership with the activist group LA Animal Save, he helped remove a cow and newborn calf from a slaughterhouse in Pico Rivera, with permission from the owner, and relocated the animals to the Farm Sanctuary property in Acton. Both locations are in Los Angeles County.
Phoenix won other awards for “Joker” in 2020, and he took up the cause of animal liberation at each step. Before the British Academy Film Awards, known as the BAFTAs, he helped drape a 400-square-foot banner from London’s famed Tower Bridge, declaring “Factory farming destroys our planet. Go vegan.”
Direct Action Everywhere insists producers such as Petaluma Poultry run factory farms that are too large to ensure animal welfare. Local dairy and poultry businesses vehemently disagree, a debate that came to a head in 2024 when DxE members championed Measure J, which sought to sharply limit the size of those operations in Sonoma County. The measure suffered a resounding defeat at the polls.
A month before the BAFTA demonstration, Phoenix thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which at the time hosted the Golden Globe Awards, for adopting vegan standards at its 2020 ceremony.
“But we have to do more than that,” he urged the Golden Globes audience that night. “Together we can hopefully be unified and actually make some changes. It’s great to vote. But sometimes we have to take that responsibility on ourselves.”
A DxE spokesperson said Phoenix’s statement on behalf of Rosenberg was coordinated by his social impact advisor, Michelle Cho.
Petaluma Poultry was locally owned until 2011, when it was acquired by Perdue Farms, the Maryland-based agribusiness giant. The company still buys its chickens from local farms. DxE has claimed for years that conditions at the Petaluma facility are cruel to the birds and unhealthy for consumers.
Perdue Farms denies such claims and has petitioned the courts to prevent DxE demonstrators from protesting at the homes of Petaluma Poultry executives.
“Petaluma Poultry is very committed to proper animal care,” local spokesperson Rob Muelrath said on behalf of the company. “Our birds have room to move around, access to the outdoors, and things to keep them engaged. They’re raised on a healthy diet without antibiotics.”
Muelrath added that the facility is regularly visited by U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors, and by Global Animal Partnership, a nonprofit that rates welfare standards at farms, ranches and other businesses related to meat production.
The Sonoma County Superior Court judge in Rosenberg’s trial, Kenneth Gnoss, prohibited her attorneys from introducing documentation DxE had collected at the processing plant in Petaluma.
Her attorneys argued she acted out of moral duty to save animals she believed were suffering. She said after the verdict, she had no regrets about her actions.
Her legal team is planning to appeal.
“The jury found Zoe Rosenberg guilty on all counts,” Muelrath wrote to The Press Democrat. “The break-in was a well-planned, deliberate breach of private property with the intent to steal — a criminal act that was deliberate, strategic, and bordering on corporate espionage or agro-terrorism.”
Phoenix’s filmography also includes starring roles in “Walk the Line,” “Her,” “The Master” and, most recently, “Eddington.”
You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @Skinny_Post.