Over the past few years, the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere has conducted a string of such open rescues, in which activists record themselves, often in daylight, taking a small number of chickens, pigs, beagles and other animals from facilities where they have documented inhumane treatment.
Their larger goal is to establish a right to rescue animals that face inhumane treatment in agriculture. In any context other than factory farming, treating animals the way we see chickens treated in the Foster Farms slaughterhouse videos would be considered blatant cruelty.
Read the New York Times story on Direct Action Everywhere.