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Animal rights group unveils video; target says it beat them to the punch
Story Date: 6/14/2013
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Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 6/13/13
Mercy for Animals, which has previously publicized undercover video shot at various meat production facilities, has unveiled a video shot at Hudson Valley Foie Gras, purporting to show the mistreatment of ducks that are being raised for foie gras production.
The short video taken at the company’s farms show ducks being fed through a metal tube inserted in their necks; injured ducks that are bleeding; and duck carcasses. In a press release the organization says it is “calling on Amazon [a major Hudson Valley customer] to immediately end the sale of foie gras on its website worldwide.”
Mercy for Animals notes that force-feeding ducks is banned in California and in more than a dozen countries, and that various retailers and chefs such as Wolfgang Puck refuse to sell foie gras.
Hudson Valley’s operations manager, Marcus Henley, rejects the idea that MFA’s video shows cruel treatment or inhumane animal handling; in fact, he said in an interview with Meatingplace, there's nothing on the video that Hudson Valley didn't post in its own video on YouTube years ago.
"The first thing we show [in our video] is the ducks being fed," he said, noting that the tubes don’t injure the ducks and that ducks don’t gag. As for the injuries to the ducks show on the video, he said he would like to know how it happened but that the injuries are minor; and, he said, Hudson Valley’s mortality rate among its birds is on par with other poultry production operations.
"I think people buying ag products have a right to come to the farm. And if it's a questionable issue I don’t think you should hide, I think you should confront it," Henley said. "Show responsible people what you're doing and let them judge." He added that after California passed its foie gras ban in 2004, several other states have considered such a ban but none have passed one.
Mercy for Animals has recently published videos at a Minnesota hog farm and a Butterball facility.
For more stories, go to http://www.meatingplace.com/.
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