e-6771 (Animals)

Petition to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

• Foie gras is produced by force-feeding ducks and geese until their livers swell up to ten times their normal size, causing a painful condition known as hepatic lipidosis;
• This process involves inserting tubes down the birds’ throats to pump large quantities of food directly into their stomachs, leading to injuries, ruptured organs, and sometimes deaths;
• Only the necks protrude from the cages, allowing the feeders to grab the birds’ heads to force the beaks open for feeding, with some birds experiencing torn necks and ruptured internal organs from the feeding tubes;
• In the last few weeks of their lives, up to four pounds of food per day are pumped into the birds’ stomachs;
• This practice is so extreme that it is unique among agricultural methods in deliberately inducing disease and deformities;
• The birds endure severe physical stress, including heat exhaustion from excess body fat and difficulty breathing due to enlarged organs;
• These aquatic birds are denied normal lives and even water for swimming; and
• The United Kingdom, most EU countries, Israel, Argentina, Switzerland, Australia, Norway, Turkey, India, and the U.S state of California have banned the production of foie gras, with India banning importation.