Published Letters and Op-Eds from
COK’s Writers Group

Do Right by Ducks, Geese

Published in Sonoma Index-Tribune on May 7, 2004.

We in Sonoma County should be ashamed of our role in the production of foie gras, a delicacy that brings misery to half a million ducks every year (“Battle over duck liver continues,” April 30). In order to create “fatty livers,” foie gras producers force-feed these birds until their now-diseased livers have grown to more than 10 times their normal size. Mr. Gonzalez of Sonoma Foie Gras implies that these birds are somehow enjoying a normal diet. Yet ducks and geese raised to produce foie gras suffer an invasive feeding technique that forces into their stomachs up to 30 percent of their body weight every day. That’s like a 200-pound man being forced to swallow 60 pounds of food a day.

Because of the suffering it causes, the force-feeding of birds has been outlawed in at least a dozen countries, including Austria, Germany, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Israel—previously the fourth-largest producer of foie gras in the world. We now have the opportunity to demonstrate compassion and ban this cruel business in California. It’s time to do the right thing.

Mark Hawthorne