Earlier this year, we reported that the city council was considering a bill banning the sale of foie gras in New York City on the grounds that it's cruel to physically pump fowl full of feed before leading them to slaughter. Today, with over one hundred animal rights activists waiting outside, the New York City Council passed the bill prohibiting the sale of force-fed foie gras, along with several other bills and resolutions meant to protect animals.
"It's long overdue," said Chris Allieri, who serves on the board of Farm Sanctuary, an upstate New York nonprofit that takes in rescued animals. Allieri said the passage of the bill would be "truly monumental" and put New York City on the forefront of cities enacting laws to protect animals. "Young New Yorkers are watching what's happening," he added. "They are on board with a cruelty-free future."
After it is signed into legislation by Mayor de Blasio, the bill, which will go into effect at the start of 2022, will make selling foie gras a misdemeanor crime, imposing civil fines ranging from $500 to $2,000 (an earlier version of the bill said violators could face up to a year in jail, but that was nixed). The bill also says that it "creates a rebuttable presumption that any item with a label or listed on the menu as 'foie gras' is the product of force-feeding." The NY Times noted that "not all foie gras comes from ducks or geese that have been force-fed, and determining whether foie gras was illegally produced may present an enforcement challenge."
Kiirsten Marilyn, a member of Voters For Animal Rights, said the process by which fois gras is made is particularly cruel. Ducks must be force-fed, causing their livers to expand to 10 times larger than normal. "Whether or not you agree if we should eat animals, fois gras is a completely luxury item," she said. "The way we treat the most vulnerable among us is the framework for how we treat each other."
In case you're not familiar and/or have yet to try it yourself, foie gras is a fancy liver paste that comes either from a duck or a goose; it literally means “fatty liver” in French. It's a delicacy that is served in nearly 1,000 restaurants across the city (according to the Times), most of whom rely on several duck farms in the Hudson Valley, which are among the only U.S. producers, to supply it.
Critics have a serious problem with the methods by which the local farms make it though: they typically shove tubes down animals' throats to engorge their organs with flavor, a production process known as gavage. As PETA wrote, "The force-feeding causes the birds’ livers to swell to up to 10 times their normal size. Many birds have difficulty standing because their engorged livers distend their abdomens, and they may tear out their own feathers and attack each other out of stress."
You can see a video of the disturbing practice below.
Advocates have argued in favor of foie gras' long culinary history (humans have engaged in gavage since the ancient Egyptians); that two major foie gras producers upstate, Hudson Valley and La Belle Farm, employ over 400 people; and that this is just political correctness gone awry. “It’s crazy," Ken Oringer, who serves about 100 pounds of foie gras a week at Toro New York, told Bloomberg. “We are talking about one of the classic fine dining experiences, a unique luxury from France made more affordable because these ducks are raised on local farms. The chickens these council members eat are raised a thousand times worse.”
But veterinarians have called it the "cruelest form of food production." Councilwoman Carlina Rivera, one of the legislation’s sponsors, noted in an email to Bloomberg, "Hundreds of veterinarians testified or submitted testimony acknowledging this fact at our hearing on the bill, with the only veterinarian claiming that foie gras was humane turning out to be a paid consultant for foie gras producers.”
In addition to the foie gras bill, the City Council voted to prohibit carriage horses from being worked when the air temperature is 90 degrees or above (or whenever the air temperature is 80 degrees or above and the equine heat index is 150 or above). Two other bills which passed: a bill that prohibits non-exempt individuals from taking or attempting to take any wild bird, and a bill to establish an Office of Animal Welfare, which will be vested with the power to advise and assist the Mayor in the coordination and cooperation between agencies relating to animal welfare administration, regulation, management, and programs.
Among the other resolutions being voted on:
- A bill that requires any full-service animal shelter operated by New York City to post photographs of each adoptable animal within three days of receiving such animal, provided that the animal is medically and behaviorally well enough.
- A bill that requires the Police Department to publish semi-annual public reports on complaints and investigation of animal cruelty allegations.
- A bill that ensures that dogs entering kennels, businesses, or establishments need to be in compliance with the New York City Health Code (which requires the dog be vaccinated for bordetella).
There were also four animal-related resolutions being voted on, including one to recognize "Meatless Monday" in New York City, and another to provide a tax credit to each taxpayer who adopts a household pet from a shelter.
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Kim
