Activists film cruelty to ducks at foie gras plant

From Canada.com

"(10 July 2007) - Global Action Network, a Montreal-based animal welfare group, is set to unveil secret footage cataloguing animal cruelty at Canada's largest foie gras producer tomorrow.

The video was compiled between November 2006 and February 2007 by a volunteer at the organization who infiltrated Elevages Perigord in St. Louis de Gonzague, about 55 kilometres southwest of Montreal, while working undercover at the farm.

It shows employees wrapping ducks and ducklings deemed too small to gavage - the force-feeding process that fattens the ducks liver for consumption, in garbage bags and hitting them against the wall, or stomping on them in order to break their necks, said Andrew Plumbly, the director of Global Action Network, this afternoon.

Although the footage does not directly implicate the farm's owners, Plumbly says their investigator's testimony shows that management at Elevages Perigord, a subsidiary of French-owned Excel Development, are aware of the cruel acts employees at the farm practice against the ducks.

Management at Elevages Perigord have thus far been unavailable for comment.

As the popularity of foie gras has soared amongst foodies and non-foodies alike, so has the condemnation. The practice of gavaging, in which up to one kilogram of food is shoveled through a metal tube down a duck's throat in one sitting, is called especially cruel by animal welfare groups.

Several countries in Europe have banned the production and sale of the fatty duck liver including Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy and Poland. Last year, Chicago followed suite and by 2012, the sale and production of foie gras will be illegal in the state of California.

Quebec is a large producer of foie gras and its industry produces 8500 duck livers a week.

The Global Action Network handed over their evidence to police Friday and the Surete du Quebec is currently investigating. In order for animal cruelty to be proved under Canadian law, the crown prosecutor must prove that the employees and management at Elevages Perigord intended to be cruel."