Lawsuit Pends, but Fresh Exposé Shows Ducks Forced to Stand on Metal, Unable to Move Around or Spread Their Wings—PETA Appeals for Owner Action
For Immediate Release:
March 6, 2013
Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382
Los Angeles -- This morning, PETA sent a letter to Sean Chaney, co-owner of Hot's Restaurant Group, appealing to him to stop serving foie gras—the sale of which is illegal in California—at Hot's Kitchen in Hermosa Beach because of new, direct evidence of cruelty to ducks at the Canadian farm that supplies the restaurant. PETA's action comes on the heels of its just-concluded investigation of the duck factory farm in Carignan, Québec, that supplies Hot's and is operated by Palmex, Inc. PETA also sent video footage showing that the ducks at Palmex's farm spend the final weeks before slaughter in barren metal cages not much larger than their own bodies, where they can't take two steps in any direction or spread even a single wing, must stand with their webbed feet on metal grating, and are denied water to bathe and swim in.
Past exposés of foie gras farms have shown that workers repeatedly ram pipes down ducks' throats and pump up to 4 pounds of grain and fat into them to sicken and enlarge their livers.
"PETA has presented Mr. Chaney with all the evidence that a compassionate person would ever need to see to be convinced that ducks cannot be allowed to suffer this way to make little bites of food for greedy people," says PETA Senior Research Associate Dan Paden. "Exposés have repeatedly revealed that foie gras farms deny ducks all that is natural and important to them and force-feed them, sometimes until holes are punched in their throats—it is so cruel and barbaric, which is exactly why California outlawed the sale of foie gras."
Hot's Kitchen has been attempting to skirt the law by changing the name of its Foie Gras Burger to THE Burger and keeping it on the menu, advertising that it comes with a "complimentary" serving of foie gras. PETA filed a lawsuit against the company in November 2012. The case is pending.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
PETA's letter to Hot's Restaurant Group co-owner Sean Chaney follows.
March 6, 2013
Sean Chaney,
Co-Owner
c/o Kellie Motte
Hot’s Restaurant
Group, Inc.
Dear Mr. Chaney:
PETA has taken a recent firsthand look at the living conditions imposed on ducks at Palmex, Inc., the factory farm outside Montréal that supplies the Rougié brand foie gras illegally sold at Hot’s Restaurant Group, Inc. (“Hot’s”). We hope you do not know what goes on there and ask that you consider the facts and decide to do the right—and legal—thing and swear off foie gras for good.
Please see how these gentle ducks—living beings who, as anyone who works with them, has kept them as pets, or has observed them in a non-exploitative way in nature will assure you, are ordinarily full of life and delight—spend the last weeks before they are slaughtered in barren, metal cages with slatted floors that they must stand on with their webbed feet, cages that are only slightly larger than their own bodies and that do not permit them to take a single step in any direction or to spread even one wing. They are prevented even from stretching, which is natural for ducks, or turning around. They cannot preen, a behavior that is integral to their well-being. There is no water for them to bathe or swim in or eat from. In other words, for this little bit of fatty liver that is being produced by force-feeding them—another horror—these tormented ducks are denied everything that is natural and important and pleasant to them. They are allowed to exist only as fatty liver–producing machines. Yet they are animate and alive, they are not machines, they feel and they suffer.
Dr. Anthony Pilny, an avian veterinarian who viewed our footage, said, “This housing denies and frustrates the ducks’ basic, biological needs, and it is cruel and inhumane.” Dr. Ian Duncan, world-renowned avian welfare expert, said that these “individual cages … prevent the birds from carrying out natural behaviour that is essential for their physical and psychological health.”
This misery is imposed on ducks who are cruelly force-fed huge amounts of grain to benefit Hot’s. I won’t reiterate the other forms of cruelty involved in force-feeding but ask you to look at how the ducks are kept, something that you may not have known about or considered. There is no question that the treatment of these ducks is cruel and grotesque. It is done just to produce one culinary treat. I am asking you to reconsider and please decide no longer to support this degree of suffering. Will you please join the many wonderful chefs and restaurants and catering services that no longer serve foie gras? I look forward to your reply. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Dan Paden
Senior Research Associate
Cruelty Investigations
Department