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Have a Heart this Valentine's Day - Not a Liver Show your love for ducks by supporting foie gras bans Like humans, many species have elaborate courting rituals by which individual animals choose their mates. Different animals perform their own unique dances of attraction that result in the birth of their young and the creation of new life. Take Mallard ducks. Every autumn, nature gives the males a seasonal makeover, stripping away their drab brown plumage and transforming them into totally different looking birds with iridescent green-feathered heads and white rings around their necks. Dressed in their finery, the drakes swim together in the open water while the females gather around the periphery to observe. Trying to impress the females, males engage in such displays as tail wagging, flicking water with their bills and flashing their brilliant coloring in the sunlight. The females choose mates during these rituals based on the specific signals sent by suitors. Around April, each pair flies to their nesting grounds and builds a nest before mating on the water's surface. The hens usually lay eggs within one or two days, as many as a dozen over the same number of days. The pairs remain together for the winter, and their broods of young chicks usually hatch in May. Whether this description sounds romantic or like an example of pure instinct (or a little of both) may depend on your perspective, but it shows how ducks are meant to live: freely, in nature, with wide open water and skies. Muscovy ducks, the kind used to make foie gras, are a lot like Mallards, yet are imprisoned in barns with no water to swim in and placed in tiny stalls so food can be forced down their throats. These ducks don't get to court mates or build nests: instead they are separated by sex; females are destroyed and males are confined into individual stalls to be easily accessible for their next force feeding. This doesn't sound very romantic or humane at all. IDA is committed to stopping the abuse being perpetrated by the foie gras industry against ducks. In 2004, IDA and the Animal Protection and Rescue League (APRL) partnered on a successful campaign to ban the sale of foie gras in California (it will be illegal as of 2012). In December 2006, our APRL colleagues spoke before the San Diego City Council Natural Resources and Culture Committee asking that the sale of foie gras be banned in San Diego without waiting for the statewide law to go into effect. Meanwhile, in Chicago, where foie gras has been outlawed since August 2006, a small handful of restaurants are breaking the law by continuing to sell the deadly "delicacy" to customers under the table. IDA and APRL held protests at two of these restaurants, Bin 36 and X/O, and were joined by Mercy for Animals and SHARK at the latter on New Years Eve. What You Can Do: This Valentine's Day, remind others to have a heart for ducks by pledging not to eat their diseased, mashed-up livers. - Give copies of IDA's brochure "Foie Gras Cruelty Revealed" to friends and family, and to your sweetheart if he or she doesn't already know how foie gras is made. Order here. - If you will be in Boston on Saturday, February 12th, join Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition (MARC) for their annual Valentine's Day foie gras demo. - If you live in or plan to visit San Diego, please contact the city council members and ask them to support the ordinance to make San Diego the first California city to ban the sale of foie gras. - If you live in Chicago, please write to the Chicago Department of Health at 1713 S. Ashland Ave, Chicago, 60608 and request that they enforce the law banning the sale of foie gras in the city. You can also write to your alderman and the mayor to complain that restaurants are in open violation of the law and continuing to support cruelty to animals. Learn more about the movement to stop the industrial abuse of ducks and how you can help ban foie gras in your area. |
February 7, 2007
Contact Back to: News Media Coverage News Archives |
Animal Protection & Rescue League 302 Washington St. #404 San Diego, CA 92103 (619) 236-9514 www.APRL.org |
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In Defense of Animals 3010 Kerner Blvd., San Rafael, CA 94901 (415) 448-0048 www.idausa.org |