You Have the Power to Rescue Thousands of Animals From Criminal Abuse. Seize it.

Oliver, a dog awaiting death at a meat farm in China.

“They’re about to kill her!” I cried. “Why can’t we help?”

We often feel powerless to rescue animals from abuse. But we have far more power than most people think. I’ve seen this firsthand.

I was 8 years old, outside of a “Wild Earth” restaurant in southern China, when I saw dogs being prepared for slaughter for the first time. “She looks just like Vivian,” I told my dad. The dog had wavy black fur and wide, curious eyes—startlingly similar to my dog back home in the States. She even looked up when I said Vivian’s name. But instead of wagging her tail, as Vivian would, she retreated into her cage and let out a frightened yelp. She knew she was about to die.

“There’s nothing that can be done,” my dad responded. I wept but did nothing—as he commanded.

But my dad was wrong. There is always something to be done. Suppose I had tried to rescue the dog. Everyone would have watched the commotion. A rattling metal door. A crying boy. A heartbroken father.

“Take her, then! Just this one,” the killers may have said. “We cannot have a crying child.” And the little pup, moments from death, would be saved.

I do not mean to say that I know this would have happened. What I am sure of, however, is something even more important: if a few thousand people join us in openly rescuing animals from abuse, we’ll save them all.

This is partly because the physical and legal barriers to open rescue are not nearly as large as many people believe. Physically, it’s easy to get into facilities that are abusing animals; typically, one merely has to walk through an unlocked door. Legally, the longest sentence anyone has served for open rescue is a mere 38 days (by yours truly). A growing network of legal scholars—including legendary constitutional law scholar Larry Tribe—are publicly defending the right to rescue. And our legal strategy was recently featured in the Harvard Law Review. Repression is not a barrier to what we’re achieving; it’s a boost.

Hundreds of activists peacefully entered a factory farm and openly rescued dying animals in this video from 2018.

My faith in rescue also comes from its narrative power. Animal advocates often say, “If only people knew.” Open rescue is among the most powerful tools for making that happen. The story of my rescue of baby Lily from Smithfield Foods—and the FBI’s hunt for the missing piglet—was read tens of millions of times, ending with my acquittal in 2022 (and the ultimate closure of the farm that Lily was trapped in). Zoe Rosenberg’s trial for rescuing 4 birds from slaughter generated an astonishing 220+ million views on social media. Movements that succeed in the modern attentional climate—dominated by Netflix and TikTok—must shift to strategies that have narrative power. There are few strategies more effective for this purpose than rescue.

But the most important reason for my faith in rescue is what it does to us: it inspires. The legendary activist and lawyer Evan Wolfson once told me that, to achieve change, you have to find a vision that embodies your movement’s deepest yearning, its North Star. This North Star inspires people to join, and directs them to work together toward a common goal.

For Evan’s movement, that was the freedom to marry. Gay rights activists didn’t truly believe they could win until Evan and his team won the first gay marriage case in 1996.

Thousands of people, including 1000 children, were arrested with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Birmingham in 1963.

For the Civil Rights Movement, it was the end to segregation, e.g., the right to sit on a whites-only seat on a bus. We remember Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., but it was the thousands of people who joined them in getting arrested for challenging segregation—including around 3,000 in the legendary Birmingham campaign—who drove the nation to transformation.

And for animal rights, it is rescue. If you love animals, there’s nothing you want more than to see them rescued from abuse. Rescue is our North Star, and if we follow it, it will take us to the promised land.

I have seen this firsthand. Thirty years after watching a dog die in a cage, I returned to China—but this time, with a rescue team. We infiltrated a dog meat slaughterhouse and rescued three ailing puppies from imminent death. People across the world heard about the rescue—and our arrest by the Chinese police—and the story was broadcast on national television in the States. Within a few years, China legally removed dogs from their status as livestock. Millions of dogs were saved. That includes Oliver, the beautiful pup I carried out of Yulin, China with my own hands and adopted into my own family.

Oliver, just weeks after his rescue.

We can do the same for all of the other animals of this earth. But only if people like you—and yes, I mean literally you—recognize your power. Already, we have over 300 people committed to the rescue effort at Ridglan Farms where thousands of dogs face imminent torture and death on July 1, 2026. This includes lawyers and teachers, grandmothers and college students. We don’t have as many as the three thousand King had in Birmingham, but if we can continue to see our numbers go up, we’ll have enough to make animal rights history.

We just need animal lovers like you to step up. You have the power to rescue a puppy from criminal abuse and, by saving that one life, build a movement to save them all.

Seize it.

Two upcoming summits will train you to rescue animals: Saturday, February 21 in NYC and March 13-15 in Madison, WI. Do not miss these if you want to join an upcoming rescue!

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What else is going on?

• My wife is going on trial again—this time, for real. Rose, a director of the UK-based Animal Rising, goes on trial next week for rescuing 18 beagles from MBR Acres in Cambridgeshire. Her last trial was postponed because the government could not find a judge. But we expect this trial to proceed. Follow me on Twitter/X, as I’ll be live tweeting from court. This will be the fourth in a set of 5 trials. So far, the government has won 2 out of 3, but no activists have been sentenced to jail time.

• We are getting closer to our goal of 500 people committed to the rescue effort at Ridglan Farms. Help spread the word by sharing this website. Every week, we have a legal briefing for those who’ve signed up to spell out the purpose, strategy, and training behind the right to rescue. This week, on Sunday at 1 pm ET, we’ll be having a fascinating guest at our briefing, lawyer and activist Jon Frohnmayer, who has done brilliant work arguing for a “religious liberty” defense for open rescue. Jon is not just a lawyer but has been directly involved in some of the most important actions in animal rights history, including the rescue of Lily at Smithfield Foods. You will not want to miss this.

Jon Frohnmayer, at an open rescue in Utah.

• We have two summits to prepare you for the Ridglan rescue effort—followed immediately by a mass action. The key to rescue is nonviolence, and the key to nonviolence is training. We’ll be organizing two mini-summits for this purpose, as I mentioned in the newsletter above: Saturday, February 21 in NYC; and March 13-15 in Madison, WI. And a mass nonviolent action is being planned on Monday, March 16. While there is a fee to help us cover venue and food costs—we’re serving lunch at both summits—just shoot us an email at info@simpleheart.org if you can’t pay, and we’ll cover your ticket.

• I was on the Animal Law Podcast to discuss my upcoming appeal in the Sonoma County case. I’ve said before that the rescue was a victory, despite my conviction, because 38 lives were saved. But now we have an even bigger prize in mind: legal rights for animals on appeal. I discuss with Mariann Sullivan and Steffen Seitz how that could happen in a matter of months, if not weeks, due to the Sonoma appeal.

More updates soon. In the meantime—sign up, show up, and spread the word.