Following APRL and IDA's lawsuit against Sonoma Foie Gras, the farm let many reporters visit. These excerpts and photos tell some of what they saw. Note in the picture above the ducks huddling to escape the feeder, dispelling the farm's claim that ducks run to be force fed.

"Just because an animal suffers, it's not a violation of animal cruelty laws." -- Robert Julian, attorney for Sonoma Foie Gras, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Dec. 31, 2003.

Excerpts from the New York Times, 9/24/03, "Foie Gras Fracas: Haute Cuisine Meets the Duck Liberators" by reporter Patricia Leigh Brown, on what Sonoma Foie Gras showed her inside their farm:

"Young ducks — whose beak tips are clipped...are confined...eight to an elevated pen, in a huge shed.... Some standing water on the shed's floor, deep enough to suggest a drainage problem, gave off the foul smell of droppings.

"During that time they are force-fed twice a day by a feeder, who uses an 8 to 10 inch steel pipe attached by a long hose to a hydraulic machine that resembles a vacuum cleaner in reverse, drawing from a vat of corn meal mush.The feeder, Jorge Vargas, inserted the metal tube down a duck's esophagus, electronically administering the 10- to 12-ounce dose, about two-thirds of a tall soda-fountain glass, in four seconds.

"The ducks who had been force-fed twice a day for two weeks, their livers swelling from one-third of a pound to one and a half pounds, were so fat they moved little and panted. The birds gain an average of seven pounds in two weeks....Weak or injured ducks have their necks broken."

Excerpts from "Activists Seek Ban on Force-Feeding," by reporter Derek J. Moore, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2003:

"An overpowering stench greets visitors entering a cavernous Central Valley shed, far from the fancy restaurants where foie gras is served as a prized delicacy.

"Inside, dim light illuminates wooden pens where 2,000 ducks are force-fed cornmeal mush twice daily to fatten them for slaughter....

"Some die from heart failure as a result of the feeding, [Eric Delmas, manager of Sonoma Foie Gras] said, or from choking when they regurgitate....

"Outside the sheds, white smoke from an incinerator where dead ducks are placed after they are collected each morning billowed into the Central Valley sky."