Ban Sale&Production of Products Made from Force-Fed Ducks/Geese, e.g., Foie Gras, in Hawaii

Please sign this petition to urge Hawaii legislators to introduce and pass this bill proposal to ban the sale and production of products made from force feeding ducks and geese, e.g., foie gras, in Hawaii.  Adding comments will help the ducks/geese. (see ==>)   

Next Action Step:  Contact: Barbara Steinberg, NFG:Hawaii Coordinator, Barbara Steinberg at  banforcefeeding@msn.com asap to receive updates of when large numbers of testimonies (letters) will be crucially required, to pass this ban.  The dismal fate of ducks/geese can change when we activate our power and voice by writing  to our lawmakers together.

Videos (warning: graphic images)
YouTube - The Foie Gras Assembly Line(Farm Sanctuary
YouTube - Foie Gras: Culinary Cruelty (Farm Sanctuary)
StopForceFeeding.com (video:APRL/IDA)

Food products made from the cruel force feeding of ducks and geese, such as foie gras,  continue to be served in restaurants in Hawaii.  Recent studies have also shown that foie gras may pose potential health risks to humans.  Potential Health Risks Associated With Stressed Foodstuffs Such As Foie Gras
 
Foie gras, the French delicacy made from the grotesquely enlarged diseased liver of a duck or goose, is a product that results from the controversial practice of force feeding, by plunging a 10-12 inch metal or plastic tube down into the throats of these animals up to 3 x a day for up to 4 weeks, with abnormal amounts of food to enlarge the liver up to 10x its normal size. The birds are forced to consume the human equivalent of 44 pounds of pasta each day (for 175 lb. human). NO Foie Gras - A Farm Sanctuary Campaign (Science &Experts) The ducks commonly used in foie gras production, the Moulard, are non-migratory. For ducks and geese in the wild that do gorge, their livers swell only twice the size, not a 10 fold expansionNO Foie Gras - A Farm Sanctuary Campaign (About Foie gras)

Experts in the medical field testify that the suffering of the birds is inhumane and detrimental to animal welfare, as the liver takes on a pathological state, Hepatic Lipidosis, where the liver can no longer perform its function, and the bodies of the birds break down. They have problems breathing, walking, malfunctioning of temperature regulation, bone fractures, infections, suffer exhaustion and inability to exert effort. No Foie Gras
http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/farm/hsus-scientists-and-experts-on-force-feeding-for-foie-gras-production-and-duck-and-goose-welfare.pdf
 
In 2009, West Hollywood City Council called foie gras "a product of animal torture" and sent copies of their resolution to all restaurants in the city serving foie gras.
West Hollywood supports foie gras ban | Daily Dish | Los Angeles Times . Also,
 San Diego, San Francisco, Takoma Park, Berkeley, and Solana Beach City Councils commended restaurants for removing this product of animal torture.
 Legislation | StopForceFeeding.com  

Foie gras production is so cruel, 15 countries, have already banned foie gras.
No Foie Gras. California's ban will be effective 2012.

In 2004, the EU (European Nation) gave France and Hungary a 15-year grace period to find alternative methods to fatten geese for foie gras, i.e., eliminate the force feeding of geese. NO Foie Gras - A Farm Sanctuary Campaign

In 2008, the Pew Commission recommended the phase out of the most intensive and inhumane production practices in USA within a decade... this includes the forced feeding of fowl to produce foie gras..http://www.ncifap.org/bin/s/a/PCIFAPSmry.pdf

Videos
StopForceFeeding.com (APRL/IDA)
YouTube - Foie Gras: Culinary Cruelty Farm Sanctuary)
YouTube - The Foie Gras Assembly Line Exerpt: As my supervisor stated,"the point of gavage was to make the duck as sick as possible, to bring them to the brink of death." (Farm Sanctuary)
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp?video=foie_gras_long&Player=wm (PETA)

Additional information by scientists, veterinarians and animal advocacy groups, celebrities and chefs, testifying to the cruelty of this product is provided as follows:
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Numerous scientists and experts testify to the suffering of these animals as detrimental to animal welfare. Many veterinarians agree that the practice is inhumane and causes unacceptable suffering to these animals.  Exerpts from: Scientists and Experts on Force-Feeding for Foie Gras Production and Duck and Goose Welfare -The Humane Society of the United States http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/farm/hsus-scientists-and-experts-on-force-feeding-for-foie-gras-production-and-duck-and-goose-welfare.pdf

Lynn R. Dustin, Veterinarian, Bay Area Bird Hospital, San Francisco, California USA: Some duck species gorge prior to migration. However, they do not gorge to the extent of causing illness or making themselves incapable of breathing or walking, which results from force feeding. Nor do they suffer the repeated trauma of gavage tube insertion.

Yvan Beck, Veterinarian, Brussels, Belgium:  "Force-feeding of palmipeds...provokes a pathological transformation of the liver which causes undeniable animal suffering. The economical goal of the process is to push the transformation of this organ to the maximum in the shortest amount of time in order to maximize profit."

Ian J. H. Duncan, Emeritus Chair of Animal Welfare, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada:  "In my opinion, the force feeding of ducks and geese, for the production of foie gras is a cruel and inhumane practice that should be banned...Forcing food down a bird's gullet beyond the limits of its appetite will cause pain and suffering. Also the regular insertion of a feeding tube down the esophagus several times a day will inevitably lead to damage of the esophagus. When the esophagus becomes damaged, then the painfulness of every force feeding episode will be exacerbated...In my view, no civilized country would allow this barbaric practice to continue."

Wendy Jensen, Veterinarian, Concord, New Hampshire, USA:  "Having seen firsthand the terrible suffering of ducks...confirmed by autopsy reports...I am forced to conclude that foie gras is produced at a terrible cost to the birds themselves. Foie gras, touted as a gourmet delicacy to entice the palate, is really only the diseased tissue of a tortured sick animal."

Mark Lerman, Veterinarian, Monsey, New York, USA:   "[T]he oesophagus is so thickened and inflamed and infected from the force "feeding" that he could never eat on his own.... The lesions seen in this duck and others like him, are unique. They are the result of a continuous, perverse and concerted effort to physically force these poor creatures to do something they weren't designed to do."

Elliot M. Katz, DVM President,
In Defense of Animals:  Animals like ducks aren't able to express the pain and suffering like a dog or cat or a human being, Dr.  Katz said.  They suffer in silence. The extreme overweight, enlarged liver all cause extreme discomfort on the inside. One can get a feel just from gastric indigestion just from eating a little too much. You can imagine what they feel when they're stuffed so much that they vomit it back up and end up dying. Chicago Food Fight Turns Ugly Over Foie Gras - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum - FOXNews.c StopForceFeeding.com

Bryan Pease, Esq., Board Chair of Animal Protection Rescue League:  "The conditions I witnessed at Hudson Valley Foie Gras are appalling," states Bryan Pease, Esq., Board Chair of APRL. "In visiting there and other farms to document conditions, I saw ducks panting incessantly and showing great difficulty walking and breathing in the later stages of force feeding, and I saw trash barrels full of dead ducks killed in the process."Activists Protest Firehouse Restaurant For Animal Cruelty StopForceFeeding.com

Wayne Pacelle, President/CEO Humane Society of the United States:  "
All one needs to do is view some of the videos taken by animal advocates at foie gras factory farms to seethat this cruelty has no place in our society."
 
Wayne Pacelle: A Humane Nation: April 2009
 
The Farm Sanctuary:  They also suffer, as do all factory farmed-ducks, from debilling, which is performed ostensibly to prevent them from pecking each other, when they are so severely confined. Shortly after birth, a hot knife sears off the tips of their sensitive upper bills, slicing through tissue rich in nerve endings. Debilled poulty suffer from chronic pain for the rest of their lives, often having trouble eating and preening.
NO Foie Gras - A Farm Sanctuary Campaign
YouTube - Foie Gras: Culinary Cruelty
YouTube - The Foie Gras Assembly Line

PETA Investigations:  A New York State Wildlife Pathologist
:
   This type of treatment and farming of waterfowl is outside the acceptable norms of agriculture and sane treatment of animals.
The Pain Behind Foie Gras | PETA.org
 Kate Winslet Exposes Fois Gras Cruelty | PETA.org http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp?video=foie_gras_long&Player=wm

ASPCA-Stacey Wolf, Esq.,Director, NY State Govt. Affairs& Public Policy:
Birds have literally exploded from these forced feedings...dead birds that have been force fed reveal ruptured livers, throat damage, esophageal trauma and food spilling from the dead animal's throat and out of it's nostrils....Foie gras production involves, indeed necessitates untold suffering prior to death and therefore violates section 353.
The Truth About Foie Gras | StopForceFeeding.com

Society for the Advancement of Animal Wellbeing:   When geese are hatched, they will be sorted, the females will be tossed alive in to a metal grinding machine .... After this they are crammed into cages the size of a shoe box with not even enough room to turn or spread their wings. Their heads permanently protrude from the cage so as to make it easier for them to be handled. For the next 14-28 days the birds will be force fed .... At the young age of 3 months, the geese or ducks will be slaughtered by the process of "sticking" this is when the knife is introduced in to the mouth and the brain is pierced and the jugular is cut internally.
Geese and Ducks - Society for the Advancement of Animal Wellbeing

Cathy Goeggel, President, Chief of Investigations,  Animal Rights Hawaii: 
"The cruelty of the foie gras industry is obvious to anyone who observes the treatment of ducks and geese in intensive production and force feeding. Any organization that dares to call itself  humane must oppose the production and sale of foie gras in Hawaii. Otherwise, they are either liars or incapable of protecting the animals they claim that they do."
 Animal Rights Hawai'i

Israel Supreme Court Justice Eliexer Rivilin:  
When Israel, a former leading producer of foie gras, banned the production of foie gras effective 2006, Israeli Supreme Court Justice Eliezer Rivlin said.....the justifier shall say that it is appropriate that the welfare of man shall ascend even at the cost of trouble to the sparking birds. But this has a price and the price is reducing the dignity of Man himself. (Verdict of the Supreme Court of Israel Foie Gras August 2003, p.39) http://www.chaiisrael.org/en/compassion/foiegras/foiegras.pdf
 
Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare:   8.2 Conclusion - The Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare concludes that force feeding, as currently practised, is detrimental to the welfare of the birds.
 http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/scah/out17_en.pdf

Wolfgang Puck, Celebrity Chef:  
As part of a several new initiative to fight animal cruelty, celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck said Thursday he will no longer serve foie gras, the fatty liver produced by overfeeding ducks and geese... "We want a better standard for living creatures "  Puck said.
Wolfgang Puck's kindler, gentler menu - Business - Consumer news - Food Inc. - msnbc.com
YouTube - WOLFGANG PUCK: RAISING THE BAR ON TREATING FARM ANIMALS WELL

Sir Paul McCartney on California's Foie Gras Ban: 
"There is clearly nothing humane about mechanically inducing disease in a bird by forcing a pipe down its throat and making it consume such an abnormal quantity of food that its liver expands many times its normal size." http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/3685602.stm
Famous French Chef Albert Roux Condems Foie Gras as Inhumane:
Roux condemns foie gras production as inhumane - News, Food & Drink - The Independent


For More Information: 
Please contact Barbara Steinberg, Coordinator for NFG Hawaii at email:   banforcefeeding@msn.com

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