Please click here to lobby your local MP
Welcome to banfoiegras.org.uk. This site exists to raise awareness of the cruel methods used to produce foie gras and to ask people to lobby their MP to sign EDM 1247 which calls for a ban on the sale of foie gras in the UK. There was also a petition the Prime Minister which came to an end on 5 May 2007 and secured nearly 9,000 signatures, which can be viewed here.
Please click on the link above and sign it as soon as you can. The more signatures on the petition, the more likely a ban will be. Please email a link to this site to as many of your contacts as possible.
<< Scroll down for text, video and picture evidence >>
What is foie gras?
Foie gras - French for “fatty liver” – is produced by forcing metal pipes down the throats of ducks and geese and force-feeding them until their livers become diseased and unnaturally enlarged. In many cases, this causes their organs to rupture.
Foie gras is banned from being produced in the UK, but many shops and restaurants import and sell it (which is not prohibited), particularly during the festive period. Consequently, birds elsewhere in the world are suffering to satisfy UK demand for foie gras. A ban on the sale of foie gras in the United Kingdom would significantly reduce bird suffering.
The force-feeding of geese is already explicitly outlawed in Poland, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Israel. In 2004, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill prohibiting both the production and the sale of foie gras in California. In 2006, the US city of Chicago passed a bye-law banning the sale of foie gras within its city limits.
To produce foie gras:
- at 12 weeks old, ducks and geese are restrained, a metal pipe is inserted into their throat, and grain is pushed down the throat into the birds’ stomachs, a process that often results in physical injury
- they are forcibly fed the equivalent to an adult human eating up to 28 lbs (13kg) of spaghetti a day. After two or three weeks, when they are ready for slaughter, their livers will have increased to about ten times their normal size
- their swollen liver expands the abdomen and can make movement and breathing difficult, as well as causing other health problems
- most birds are kept in wire cages which are so small that they have no room to turn around or stretch their wings, and their feet are often injured by the wire floor
- many die before the end of the force-feeding cycle and the mortality rate for ducks raised on foie gras farms is the highest in the poultry farming industry
How do we know it's cruel?
Ducks and geese raised for foie gras are mistreated in ways that are already illegal if dogs and cats were the victims. Although foie gras has historically come from force-fed geese, most foie gras farms now raise ducks - mule, muscovy, and genetically-manipulated, sterile animals called “moulards.” Farmers have found that they can sell more than just the ducks’ fattened livers: ducks’ legs, breasts, fat, and skin are also harvested and sold as speciality foods. The bodies of geese, however, age too quickly to be used for some of these foods, and so today, in France, only 4 percent of foie gras actually comes from geese.
Female chicks shredded alive
To the producers of foie gras, female hatchlings are of little use. They do not grow at the same rate as male or the genetically-modified moulards, and thus give a slower return on investment. So instead they are shredded, whilst still alive. As you can see in the first video clip below, it shows the birds being dropped into a large funnel that leads to the blades below, which slice them into feed for other animals.
Painful force-feeding
Birds raised for foie gras spend the first four weeks of their lives eating and growing, sometimes in semi-darkness. For the next four weeks, they are confined to cages and fed a high-protein, high-starch diet that is designed to promote rapid growth. Force-feeding begins when the birds are between 8 and 10 weeks old. For 12 to 21 days, ducks and geese are subjected to force-feeding - every day, up to 4 pounds of grain and fat are forced down the birds’ throats by means of a feeding tube called a 'gavage'.
Inhumane neck damage
The Washington Post reported that the tube “is pushed 5 inches down their throats and more food than they want is gunned into their stomachs. If the mushy corn sticks … a stick is sometimes used to force it down.” The birds’ livers, which become engorged from a carbohydrate-rich diet, can grow to be more than 10 times their normal size (a disease called “hepatic steatosis”). The mortality rate of birds raised for foie gras has been found to be as much as 20 times higher than that of birds raised normally, and carcasses show wing fractures and severe tissue damage to the throat muscles.
"Maggot-covered necks, riddled with tumours"
A PETA investigation at a foie gras production facility in New York revealed that workers were expected to force-feed 500 birds three times a day. A worker told one of their investigators that he could feel tumour-like lumps, caused by force-feeding, in some ducks’ throats. One duck had a maggot-covered neck wound that was so severe that water spilled out of it when it drank. Workers routinely carried ducks by their necks, causing them to choke and defecate in distress. A New York State wildlife pathologist who examined ducks farmed to produce foie gras noted the birds had “greatly enlarged livers, the product of overfeeding by force (livers are easily torn by even minor trauma)” and one duck’s “laceration of the liver with haemorrhage into the body cavity.”
Investigations into foie gras farms in Europe and the United States have all observed the same – sick, dead and dying animals, some with holes in their necks from pipe injuries. An Animal Protection & Rescue League investigation found one farm where ducks with bloody beaks and their wings twisted together were jammed into wire cages. At another farm, birds were dangling by wires as blood spilled from wounds in their necks and onto other live birds beneath them. After being subjected to this for about a month, ducks and geese are shackled upside-down, and their throats are cut.
Live-plucked without anaesthetic
Animals used in foie gras production may also be live-plucked for down. In countries where this practice continues, up to 5 ounces of feathers and down are pulled from each bird every 6 weeks, from the time they are 10 weeks old until they are up to 4 years old. Plucking causes considerable pain and distress. One study of chickens' heart rates and behaviours determined that "feather removal is likely to be painful to the bird(s)", and another study found that the blood glucose level of some geese nearly doubled (a symptom of severe stress) during plucking.
Birds living in fear
Domestic ducks and geese usually enjoy being hand-fed by humans. However, according to one study, birds subjected to force-feeding “kept away from the person who would force-feed them … the birds were less well able to move and were usually panting but they still moved away.” Even ducks confined to cages “moved their heads away from the person who was about to force feed them.” The birds often shake when approached with the gavage.
Geese are social animals who establish hierarchies in their flocks and love to forage. They prefer to be monogamous, and both parents care for their young. One breeder says that “geese tend to vary more from one individual to another in terms of personality traits than any other form of domestic poultry.” Because most birds raised for foie gras are kept in cages or in very small groups, their social or normal grooming activities are limited or impossible.
What the scientists say
"When ducks or geese were in a pen during the force feeding procedure, they kept away from the person who would force feed them, even though that person normally supplied them with food. At the end of the force feeding procedure, the birds were less well able to move and were usually panting but they still moved away or tried to move away from the person who had force fed them.” Ducks individually caged: “...had little opportunity to show avoidance but sometimes moved their heads away from the person who was about to force feed them."
Member of the EU’s Scientific Animal Health and Animal Welfare Committee, reporting on farm visits to observe foie gras production.
"The production of fatty liver for foie gras raises serious animal welfare issues and it is not a practice that is condoned by FAO."
Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations
"This practice causes unacceptable suffering to these animals."
Dr. Christine Nichol, Professor of Animal Welfare, School of Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, UK
"Force feeding quickly results in birds that are obese and in a pathological state, called hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver disease. There is no doubt that in this pathological state the birds will feel very ill."
Dr. Ian Duncan, Professor of Applied Ethology, University of Guelph, Canada.
"The RSPCA strongly is opposed to the production of foie gras whereby the birds are kept in cages and force-fed to produce a very large and fatty liver. This is a cruel practice and undoubtedly results in unnecessary suffering. We would encourage any food retailers and restaurants that are currently selling foie gras to seriously reconsider their support for this cruel practice."
Dr Marc Cooper, RSPCA senior scientific officer
"As a veterinary surgeon who has witnessed first-hand the suffering caused by force feeding of geese, I sincerely applaud Paul Blanchard's initiative."
Andre Menache MRCVS, of AnimalAid
If you doubt whether the methods used to produce foie gras are cruel, we would ask you to look at the film clips and photos below. The first clip is only 3 minutes long and is well worth watching - the second clip is 14 minutes long but goes into much more detail. The third and final film was made by PETA and is narrated by former James Bond, the actor Roger Moore.
There is also a useful scientific report here, written in 2000 by Advocates for Animals.
WARNING: the videos contain graphic scenes of bird torture. Whether or not you choose to watch them, please sign the petition to get this cruelly-produced food banned.
