New York foie gras fights

The Sunday, June 26, New York Times has an op-ed on the foie gras debate (Section 4, page 11) headed "Face to Face With the Foie Gras Problem." And the current edition of New York Magazine (June 27) has a lengthy and balanced feature article headed, "Does a Duck Have a Soul? How foie gras became the new fur."

The Times op-ed spells out why, after the groundbreaking law passed in California that will ban all production and sale of foie gras in the world's fifth largest economy as of 2012, animal advocates err when accepting amendments to bills in other states when the amendments cut out the ban on sale.

Here is how it opens:
"The web of life can be a trap for the conscience. Try twisting your mind around the human relationship with animals and it may quickly snarl in crisscrossing strands of compassion and guilt. Contortions may ensue.

"Consider, for example, the strange role reversals behind an effort in Albany to outlaw the force-feeding of waterfowl to engorge their livers
into foie gras, the fatty restaurant delicacy. One Senate sponsor, John Bonacic, is an upstate Republican who says he has no special sympathy for ducks or geese, despite what his bill says. He says he wants only to help a Sullivan County constituent - Hudson Valley Foie Gras, the nation's leading producer of fresh foie gras, which has not only lobbied for the bill, but also helped to write it.

"Why? Michael Ginor, an owner of Hudson Valley Foie Gras, says he feels an anti-foie-gras mood building and is willing to be put out of business in New York if he can land on his feet somewhere else. The Bonacic bill, unlike others lurking in the legislative wings, does not take effect until 2016, giving Mr. Ginor ample time to make other plans - moving to Canada, maybe, or an Indian reservation - without worrying about losing his market dominance or facing prosecution for cruelty.

"Animal welfare advocates have thus found themselves opposing a foie-gras ban, which in this case they say cynically gives a duck torturer a decade of indulgence."

Surprisingly, there are animal groups still pushing the bill, even though the ban on production in one state that will still be able to import foie gras from other states, will do nothing to help the animals, and fighting for it therefore wastes time, resources, and money that people have donated hoping to help animals.

The article continues:
"That bill and others like it are going nowhere this session, but they'll be back. The battle against foie gras is being fought on many fronts -
California, the country's only other producer, enacted a law to eventually ban its production and sale, as have other states and countries."

In its current state, the demise of the New York foie gras bill should be welcome news. And animal advocates should not blithely support future bills that do not ban sale, when California and other countries have made it clear that bans on sale, though not easily won, are possible.

The op-ed goes on to suggest that foie gras production really isn't so bad for the animals. One has to disagree after seeing footage of ducks on foie gras farms too weak to defend themselves being eaten alive by rats. However the following point is fair:

"The human appetite for sentient protein - food that flinches - is an ethical puzzle that many of us solve by deciding not to think about it. But those who lament the exploitation of God's creatures for human consumption and fun should be careful not to spend all their pity in one place. There is, after all, a vast universe of discomfort and death in American agribusiness, which processes 9 billion chickens and 98 million pigs a year, often in close confinement, ending in slaughter on a monumental scale. Against this backdrop - not to mention the misery of the veal pen, the mass agony of the trawler net, the sadness of the pet shop and circus - the sum of animal unhappiness in Hudson Valley's tidily run operation, which kills 250,000 ducks a year, seems trivial."

It certainly isn't trivial to the ducks, and since the world is not going vegan tomorrow we help where we can. And, of course, not all of us solve the puzzle by deciding not to think about it. Some of us make different food choices. The op-ed cries out for letters to the editor in support of plant-based diets!

It ends with the reminder that Hudson Valley Foie Gras provides a living for 175 people, tacitly suggesting that we should condone any business, no matter how unethical and offensive to our sensibilities, if it provides jobs.

Animal advocates will disagree with much of the op-ed but it is a thoughtful piece, worth reading, and certainly worth responding to. You'll find it on line at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/opinion/26sun2.html

The New York Times takes letters at: letters [at] nytimes.com

The New York Magazine article looks at the foie gras debate in New York, focusing on protests outside Union Square cafe. It includes description of foie gras production:

"The controversy has arisen not over the mere slaughter of poultry but over the way foie gras is, and by definition must be, created. (Literally, the term means 'fattened liver.') Foie gras is that most Catholic of delicacies: paradise attained through suffering. The process generally involves a twelve-week stage in which ducks are allowed to roam free in a yard—then a four-week period of force-feeding, known as gavage. Two or three times a day, the birds have a tube jammed straight into their esophagi, at which point a few pounds of cornmeal are injected. Eventually, their livers expand to many times their normal size, at which point the birds are dispatched, and their innards served up to aficionados. It’s this method that makes foie gras so singularly rich and silky: By the time the ducks reach the end of the line, their livers consist of no less than 80 percent fat."

You can read that article on line at:
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/food/features/12071/index.html
It provides an opening for letters on foie gras, or any aspect of human society's treatment of members of other species. New York Magazine takes letters at: NYLetters [at] newyorkmag.com

Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Shorter letters are more likely to be published.


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)