SUSSEX COUNTY, Del. - Direct Action Everywhere, an animal rights organization based in California, will be in Salisbury on Tuesday, March 18 for a days long protest and vigil.
Cassie King, organizer with Direct Action Everywhere, says the organization is "working to achieve revolutionary social and political change for animals."
King says the end goal is to transition away from animal agriculture. Animal agriculture consists of the breeding, raising and slaughter of animals for human use, including meat, milk, eggs and other products.
Animal agriculture has proven to be a necessity on Delmarva, it is the livelihood for many people who work on poultry farms, in slaughterhouses and even those who transport the chickens.
Bobby Hawkins works at a poultry farm and says "animal welfare to me is the core of responsibility that I have as the poultry grower."
"A big part of my job is reading birds. I can come in and tell if they're a little bit too cold, a little bit too hot, how they're feeling, and try to adjust accordingly to make sure that they're comfortable at all times," said Hawkins.
However, for Cassie King and other organizers with Direct Action Everywhere or DxE, an animal rights group based in California, they want to see what they call a cruel industry gone forever.
"I think we can move away from exploiting animals for food and other things with a just transition. We realize it's not going to happen overnight, we're not asking for these operations to shut down tomorrow. We need a plan and we need funding from the government," said King.
King says they're also protesting to call on Perdue's CEO Kevin McAdams to close down Petaluma Poultry, a Perdue subsidiary.
"The people at the top of these corporations don't care about the animals, they don't care about the workers and they don't care about our health or our environment."
Perdue's Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications Andrea Staub with perdue says that's not true.
"It is clear that the plans to protest isn't focused on animal welfare. This is part of a broader movement and agenda, with the goal of ending animal protein production of any kind by potentially disrupting local businesses and creating chaos," said Staub.
CoastTV spoke with James Fisher, communications manager for Delmarva Chicken Association, was asked what the impact would be on Delmarva is animal agriculture were to end.
"It would be disastrous," said Fisher.
"It would mean tens of thousands of jobs going away. It would mean a major source of food for the U.S. would just be not available. It would mean chicken would become a lot more expensive and a lot harder to get," Fisher Shared.
"They're not concerned with making chicken more affordable, they're not concerned with helping family farmers make it in the 21st century. They do want it all to go away. It's an unrealistic goal," he continued.
Cassie King shared that she feels differently. She believes ending animal agriculture would benefit both animals and humans and says both suffer in what she calls a cruel, exploitative industry.
"It is completely connected to other issues like our health, like the abuse of immigrants who are primarily people of color, low income people working in these slaughterhouses getting PTSD, having fingers chopped off. The injuries that they're facing, the abuse that they're facing, it's all connected," said King.
King shared that DxE investigators are trained in "veterinarian approved bio security measures, animal handling and identifying what ailments and injuries look like in chickens and other animals."
She described what the organizations investigations and "open rescues' consist of.
"Going in with cameras, filming the conditions, releasing that footage to the world to show them inside of facilities that the public would otherwise never see inside of."
The open rescues consist of entering slaughterhouses and removing chickens. What the organizations calls investigating and open rescue, others, including those in the legal system, call it trespassing and theft.
"That's definitely a charge that some investigators have faced. There have been individual activists in Direct Action Everywhere who've gone on trial facing trespass charges and theft charges for going inside these facilities and rescuing animals," King shared.
"In some cases, activists have been acquitted," she continued.
Among the people who consider their approach trespassing and theft, is James Fisher.
"This is a group that has been known for trespassing onto farms in the middle of the night and claiming they have a right to steal animals. These family farms, these aren't just where chickens live. These are where our farmers live too. Most chicken farmers will walk out the back door, walk across the backyard and go to work in the chicken house. So if you're going to trespass on that property, you're trespassing where that grower and his or her family lives as well."
While everyone has their own feelings about animal agriculture, Andrea Staub says Perdue is continuing to move forward.
"Perdue has been a proud part of the Delmarva community for over 105 years. Our top priority is the safety and well-being of our associates and the broader community."
King shared that Direct Action Everywhere or DxE will be in Salisbury from Tuesday, March 18 to Saturday, March 22. From Tuesday through Friday, four protestors from California will be outside of the Perdue Headquarters with a prop of Perdue's CEO, Kevin McAdam's head with a speech bubble that says "I torture chickens."
On Saturday, she says the protestors will hold a vigil for the chickens in the slaughterhouse.
Senior Manager of Corporate Communications shared that local law enforcement are aware of the nearly week long protest.