They May Soon Throw Our Friends in Cages. We'll Win Anyways.

Two imminent legal decisions could condemn thousands to a cage.

Zoe Rosenberg faces up to 4.5 years in prison for rescuing a handful of sick birds from a slaughterhouse; a jury will decide her fate as early as today.

Halfway across the nation, a mama beagle will find out if she is condemned to live the rest of her life in a 2’ x 4’ metal cage. In 2024, inspectors found her limping and grievously injured at Ridglan Farms. A judge concluded that she was a victim of a crime. This week, a special prosecutor will decide whether she, and thousands of other dogs, will ever see life outside of a cage.

The situation in each case is dire.

For Zoe: a judge has denied her the right to argue that her actions were necessary to save lives. Animals, the judge ruled, simply are not “persons” entitled to protection under the necessity defense. This has left Zoe’s defense partially crippled and unable to tell her story to the jury.

For the mama beagle: La Crosse District Attorney Tim Gruenke and Madison Lead Prosecutor Marci Kurtz, have ignored overwhelming evidence of felony animal abuse — including dogs subjected to surgical mutilation without anesthesia — and blocked efforts to help the dogs. Despite a mass public outcry to save the dogs, including a resolution last week by the local county Board, Gruenke and Kurtz seem intent on leaving the dogs to die in a cage.

Yet despite this, I’m feeling hope. No matter what happens in these cases, we will win.

This is partly because of the attention these cases have seized, including videos with millions of views and coverage from important outlets such as the New York Times and Science magazine. Attention is even more important than money or votes in modern politics because, without attention, it’s impossible to create the powerful feedback loops that sustain change. Even supposed victories in animal rights, such as Prop 12 in California, are meaningless when no one pays enough attention to make sure they are actually maintained.

My hope in these cases also comes from taking the long view. While the immediate decisions may go against us in the short term, there are key factors in each case that will help us in the long term.In Zoe’s case, the judge effectively admitted that his decision on legal necessity should be appealed and described the argument as “difficult.” Admissions such as these may help us bring the issues up to higher courts, such as the California Supreme Court, which only takes cases that will “settle an important question of law.” Animal personhood is becoming just such an important question partly because of Zoe’s trial.

In the Ridglan case, the government’s inaction will strengthen the case for direct action over the long run. A coalition of animal rights groups is already planning to use Wisconsin’s inaction as a basis for seeking broader federal intervention against animal experimentation, which could free not just the Ridglan dogs but millions of others. And I am planning a speaking tour in early 2026 where I use the Ridglan case to mobilize people to action in the grassroots. Importantly, other mainstream institutions are starting to see the problem, with local media outlets widely condemning the government’s inaction and even local politicians, such as the Dane County Supervisors, beginning to recognize that something is broken. Once again, a short term loss may become a long term gain.

But the most important reason I’m hopeful is that activists, and even the public, are now willing to fight back when we lose. Twenty years ago, when Adam Durand faced incarceration for rescuing sick hens from a factory farm in New York, the movement’s response was fearful. Open rescue efforts were shut down across the nation.

Around the same time of Adam’s imprisonment, reports of horrific abuse at Ridglan first came forward, including unsanitary conditions and huge pyres of dead dogs. But when the USDA refused to act—the agency’s own Inspector General called its enforcement mechanisms “basically meaningless”—the movement simply didn’t have the stomach to fight. As a result, thousands of Ridglan dogs would be relegated to torture over the next two decades.

The world today could not be more different. Instead of running from Zoe’s case, activists across the nation have been fighting back, including a disruption at Trader Joe’s (a customer of the slaughterhouse in Zoe’s case) just a few days ago. And, unlike the response to the USDA’s inaction two decades ago, the fury riled up by Gruenke’s inaction is a force to be reckoned with. Just check my X feed!

The political scientist Hahrie Han, who recently won a MacArthur “genius” grant, has written that all social movements face backlash. The last week has been proof of that in animal rights. But she has also written that the difference between effective and ineffective movements is that the effective ones harness that backlash for change. This is what gives me hope. For the first time in history, the animal rights movement is learning that lesson. They may try to put us, and our friends, into a cage.

But we will win because we are fighting back, and the public is joining us. And we will simply harness their efforts to cage us to build even more power for change.

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It’s not too late to reach out to Tim Gruenke and Marci Kurtz and demand that they take action. You can reach Tim Gruenke by email (tim.gruenke@da.wi.gov) and at his office number (608-785-9604). You can reach Marci Kurtz by email (MKurtz@cityofmadison.com) or at her office number (608-266-4511). It’s enough to simply say, politely, “It’s unacceptable that you’ve failed to protect the Ridglan dogs. Please change course.”