Defenders of foie gras score victory in Maryland

Familiar arguments repeated

By FRITZ MAYER

FERNDALE, NY — Animal rights groups predictably argued that force-feeding ducks is painful and cruel. Others said that the traditional practice is not painful and does not harm the ducks. This time around, the foie gras proponents prevailed.

The setting was a hearing of a Maryland senate committee on March 4, where legislation that would have banned the sale of foie gras in the state was being considered.

Paul Shapiro of The Humane Society of the United States, which has been a party to lengthy and ongoing legal battles against Hudson Valley Foie Gras (HVFG) in Ferndale, called the practice of force-feeding “inhumane.”

Julie Janovsky of the activist group Farm Sanctuary, which has also been fighting to have foie gras production banned in the United States, told lawmakers that force-feeding makes the ducks sick.

But before the hearing, Melvin Thompson, vice president of the Maryland Restaurant Association, had led a delegation on a tour of HVFG to get a first-hand look at the facility.

“As the alleged ethical issues were raised by the animal rights activist community at the hearing, it was a powerful counterbalance for our members to provide testimony as to what they saw at the farm,” Thompson later said. “We saw nothing that would indicate that the care and feeding of the birds was not entirely consistent with generally accepted humane farming practices.”

At the hearing, Baltimore chefs and restaurateurs also opposed the ban, as did the Maryland State Veterinarian, Dr. Guy Hohenhaus. He said, “Previous deliberations by the American Veterinary Medical Association and careful review of the science simply do not support a foie gras ban.”

Two days after the hearing, Maryland house delegate Tanya Shewell, who had sponsored the anti-foie gras legislation in the house, withdrew her bill. In the senate, the bill’s sponsor, senator Joan Carter Conway, backed away from the provisions that would have banned the sale and transport of foie gras, saying, “We may have gone too far with this.” She added, “I have heard additional information about the foie gras process that has caused me to change my mind.”

In response, Izzy Yanay, vice president of HVFG, said,“We are very gratified to see that when the science and agricultural facts are laid before open-minded decision makers, they arrive at a reasonable conclusion. Arbitrarily banning any culinary tradition without looking at all the facts would be unfortunate public policy.”

The production and sale of foie gras has been banned in Chicago, IL, although chefs often ignore the law. It has also been banned in California, but that doesn’t go into effect until 2010. In the meantime, proposed bans have been turned back or defeated in Oregon, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut and New York.

However, not everything related to duck livers these days is going in favor of HVFG. The anti-foie gras forces recently got a boost from Prince Charles in Great Britain. In response to concerns raised by an animal rights activist in late February, a spokeswoman for the prince told the wire service Agence France-Presse, “We can confirm that the Prince of Wales does have a policy that his chefs do not purchase foie gras.”