History · Confinement and Cruelty · Liver Disease
Spurious Industry Arguments · Legislative Remedies · Legal Prosecutions

History
Foie gras (pronounced 'fwah grah') has been exalted in some gourmet food circles as a prized delicacy, but if most people knew how foie gras is produced, they would be horrified.

Foie gras, the French term for "fatty liver," is the product of extreme animal cruelty. It is the swollen, diseased liver of ducks and geese who are force-fed just up until the point of death before being slaughtered. Birds suffer tremendously, both during and after the force-feeding process, as their physical condition rapidly deterioriates. In just a few weeks, their livers swell up to ten times their normal size, and the birds can scarcely stand, walk, or even breathe. At this point, they are slaughtered, and their livers are peddled as a "gourmet" delicacy.

The idea for this cruel force-feeding practice is thought to have originated in ancient Egypt, after people noticed that wild geese often gorge themselves before embarking on long migrations. Because Egyptians, and later Romans, considered the fat-laden flesh and organs of those geese caught after this pre-migration gorging to taste better, they sought to artificially induce and exaggerate this condition in captive geese. Thereafter, the practice of force-feeding took hold, later degenerating and devolving into what is now the modern foie gras industry.

Confinement and Cruelty
Today foie gras production is concentrated in France, which produces and consumes 90% of the world's foie gras. Roughly 24 million ducks and half a million geese are killed annually for France's foie gras industry. Nearly all of the birds are raised in intensive confinement systems, and all of them endure brutal, intensive force feeding, several times a day, in the weeks prior to their deaths. Approximately 500,000 or half a million birds are killed annually for foie gras in the United States.

In modern foie gras factory farms, geese and ducks are confined, usually in either small pens or in tiny cages that virtually lock the birds in place. Thus restrained, the birds cannot escape the "feeder" and the mechanized feeding machine. One by one, the feeder grabs each bird and plunges the metal pipe of the feeding machine down their throats. The machine pumps a huge amount of a corn-and-oil mixture directly into their gullets in just a few seconds, equivalent to one-third to one-fourth of the birds' own body weight each day.

This brutal treatment is devastating to the health of the birds. In a matter of weeks, their livers have swollen up to ten times their normal size. Breathing and walking become difficult as the liver pushes against other organs, causing respiratory stress due to decreased air sac space in their lungs, and forcing the legs to move outward at an unnatural angle. Ducks at foie gras farms have been observed panting and struggling to stand, using their wings to push themselves forward when their crippled legs can no longer support them. Struggling to move causes infection-prone open pressure sores to develop and fester on their hocks (legs) and keels (chest area).

In this compromised state, depressed birds can no longer engage in normal preening behaviors, and this is compounded by the fact that they are denied access to water sufficient for them to engage in normal, instinctual behaviors. Their plumage becomes encrusted with filth, and most of them develop what foie gras farmers call "wet neck"-when their unpreened feathers curl up and become coated with dirt and oil.

They also suffer, as do all factory-farmed ducks, from debilling, which is performed ostensibly to prevent them from pecking each other when they are so severely confined. Shortly after birth, a hot knife sears off the tips of their sensitive upper bills, slicing through tissue rich in nerve endings. Debilled poultry suffer from chronic pain for the rest of their lives, often having trouble eating and preening.

As a result of these egregious conditions, the birds suffer both physically and psychologically.

Liver Disease
Furthermore, liver function in foie gras birds is severely compromised. In medical terms, the liver is in a state of dysfunction called hepatic lipidosis or hepatic steatosis, meaning it can no longer perform its intended function. According to avian veterinarian Dr. Laurie Siperstein Cook, "The liver is there to clean out toxins from the blood stream. If the liver can't work properly, you've got all these toxins flowing through the blood, making them feel bad in various ways, so it can harm various organs as well as the brain."

Dr. Castes of L'Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse describes this phenomenon further as "hepatic encephalopathy":

This is the result of an endogenous intoxication due to the hepatic impairment; the liver can no longer play its role as a circulatory filter. As a result, various metabolites appear in the blood that are usually stopped by the liver (ammonium, mercaptans, short-chain antigens) and that may then reach the central nervous system (particularly sensitive to these compounds) and trigger central nervous troubles such as:

- cerclage movements,
- eptileptiform crisis
- Increase of the intracranial pressure accompanied by migraines, and finally stupor, coma and death.

Not surprisingly, the mortality rate on foie gras farms can be up to 20 times higher than the death rate on conventional duck farms. Ducks can die when the metal feeding tube punctures their necks, when their stomachs literally "burst" from the enormous volume of food they are forced to ingest or when force-feeding overfills them to the point of suffocation. Necropsies performed on foie gras birds have shown them to suffer from grossly enlarged livers, lacerated tracheas and esophagi, pneumonia, throats and gullets severely impacted with undigested corn, massive internal bacterial and fungal growth and sore feet from bumblefoot - all consequences of the production method for which veterinary care is not profitable. A December 2005 necropsy report states: “the stresses of the final forced-feeding caused an acute respiratory limitation on ducks already suffering from pneumonia and severe hepatameglia restricted respiratory activity due to liver pressure on air sacs. This killed the ducks.”

Spurious Industry Arguments
The foie gras industry often tries to justify its practices by saying they are just an extension of the natural, pre-migration gorging behaviors of migratory fowl, first noted by the Egyptians thousands of years ago. However, this claim is patently false on several accounts.

First, migratory geese never gorge themselves up until the point of death before migration. Such extreme behaviors would be physically incapacitating and would be antithetical to their survival. The livers of wild ducks and geese may expand up to twice their normal size, prior to migration, not a ten-fold expansion as found in forced-feeding production.

Second, the duck species (Muscovy and Mulard or Moulard) used in foie gras production are non-migratory and not predisposed to gorging as are wild geese. In addition, wild birds who do migrate expend the excess fat for migration, unlike the severly confined birds in foie gras facilities. Artificially-induced gorging is extremely painful and debilitating to these birds, as noted by the European Scientific Committee on Health and Animal Welfare's 1998 report, which concluded that "Whilst the domestic goose might well be adapted to store food before migration, it is less likely that a cross between the domestic duck and the Muscovy duck, the Mulard, has such potential for food."

The foie gras industry also defends their production methods by claiming it is a long-held tradition. However, ducks and geese fattened with figs in olden times were not forced to endure living inside dark warehouses in cramped and dirty wire cages with little or no water and force-fed with wide, inflexible and non-lubricated pipes.

Today, the Mulard duck, a cross between the male Muscovy and the female Pekin duck, is the most commonly-used bird in the foie gras industry throughout the world. It is, in fact, the only species of bird used by U.S. foie gras producers because it is considered easier to raise than geese or other breeds of ducks. Because the male Mulard duck is larger and hardier (and thus better able to survive the rigors of force feeding), females are almost never used for foie gras, but are raised for meat.

Legislative Remedies
Over the last few decades, foie gras production has been outlawed in at least fourteen countries, either with explicit language in the laws, or as part of the general animal cruelty law. As of January 2004, Italy banned foie gras production, following the lead of Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, and Poland. Other countries whose laws have been interpreted to ban the force feeding of animals for foie gras production include Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Perhaps most significantly, Israel, once the world's fourth largest foie gras producer, recently banned foie gras production in the country. In August 2003, the Israeli Supreme Court issued a 39-page decision declaring foie gras production to be contrary to the country's animal protection laws. In issuing his opinion, Judge Strasberg-Cohen stated:

There is no real controversy with respect to the fact that the practice of force-feeding causes suffering to the geese. . . the goose is prevented from eating freely and is forcefully fed several times a day with high energy food and in quantity far above is physiological requirements. The process-whereby a metal tube, through which the food is packed into its stomach, is introduced into the goose's body-is violent and harmful. The process causes a degenerative disease in the goose's liver and enlargement of the liver up to ten times its normal size. There is no controversy that without the injury to the goose liver, it is not possible, at present, to produce goose liver. (see Israeli Report, page 32).

His colleague, Justice E. Rivlin, concluded the court's declaration by stating:

. . . no one denies that these creatures also feel the pain inflicted upon them through physical harm or a violent intrusion into their bodies. Indeed, whoever wishes to may find, in the circumstances of this appeal, prima facie justification for the acts of artificial force-feeding, justification whose essence is the need to retain the farmer's source of livelihood and enhance the gastronomic delight of others. . . But this has a price-and the price is reducing the dignity of Man himself.

Like my colleague Justice Strasberg-Cohen, I also think that the regulations concerning the force-feeding procedure are to be annulled, and the acts of artificial force-feeding, as allowed by the regulations, are banned. (see Israeli Report, p. 39).

Despite these legislative advances, worldwide foie gras production has been increasing dramatically in recent years, and in France it has nearly doubled in the last decade. The last decade has also seen the establishment of foie gras farms in the U.S., which previously imported all of its foie gras from abroad. Hudson Valley Foie Gras in New York is responsible for most of the U.S. foie gras production, followed by Sonoma Foie Gras in California. Undercover investigations in both of these farms have revealed terrible, graphic suffering, from bloodied birds barely able to stand or walk, to trash cans full of dead birds. Legislative and other efforts are now underway in the U.S. to ban this cruelty.

The state of California and the city of Chicago have banned the cruel product. These are successful examples of legislative and other efforts now underway in the U.S. to further ban this cruelty. Click here to see how you can help.

Legal Prosecutions
In 2003, Farm Sanctuary urged San Joaquin County, California District Attorney to investigate and prosecute Sonoma Foie Gras for violating California's animal cruelty statute. In making the request, Farm Sanctuary submitted a full year's worth of evidence, including videotape, photographic evidence and written documentation of the ongoing mistreatment and suffering of ducks at the facility. The evidence shows, among other cruelties: Ducks encrusted in filth, bloodied ducks, ducks unable to stand or walk, ducks having difficulty breathing, and dead ducks lying in cages among live ducks. It presents graphically what animal protection advocates have long claimed: That Sonoma Foie Gras wreaks horrific abuses and torture on its animals to produce a "delicacy" food item.

Please click here to read Farm Sanctuary's letter requesting prosecution.

In August 2003, the Israeli Supreme Court determined that the force feeding of birds to produce foie gras is a violation of the nation's anti-cruelty laws. The Israeli Animal Welfare Law states, "No one shall torture an animal, treat it cruelly or abuse it in any manner." (clause 2(a)) Noah, the Israeli Federation of Animal Protection Organizations acted as the plaintiff in the court case, and asked that the court rule that force feeding is forbidden under Israeli law because force feeding constitutes torture, cruel treatment and abuse.

The judges ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and Israel joined the many other nations that have prohibited foie gras production. As Judge T. Strasberg-Cohen stated summarily, "There is no real controversy with respect to the fact that the practice of force feeding causes suffering to the geese."

Click here to read the full text of the Israeli ruling.

In June 21, 2006, The Humane Society of the United States and Farm Sanctuary, along with the Government Accountability Project's Food Safety Program and the New York State Humane Association, filed a formal action with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets to stop the practice under a state law that makes it illegal to produce food from diseased animals. Click here to read more about this petition asking that foie gras be declared an adulterated food product.

Click here for a Question & Answer document about the importance of fighting the foie gras industry