Liver Let Die

A visit to the nation's largest foie gras farm sheds light on a growing debate.

by David Snyder

FAIR OR FOWL: A Hudson Valley employee performs gavage, the process of tube-feeding ducks to produce foie gras. Photo By: David Snyder (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Feathers are flying in the battle that will determine whether you can serve foie gras in Philadelphia. The bill Councilman Jack Kelly proposed last year that would ban the sale of foie gras — the fattened livers of ducks and geese — will reportedly not be addressed until at least January.

Regardless, animal rights activists are protesting restaurants in Center City, arguing that gavage, the tube-feeding process used to fatten the birds' livers, is inhumane. A local animal rights group, Hugs for Puppies, and its director, Nick Cooney, are fronting the crusade. The group's literature contains photographs of ducks in vomit-covered pens; other images feature what appears to be a dead bird with food caked in its mouth, along with a caption suggesting that the animal died by suffocating on regurgitated food.

But is that really how the ducks are treated? I wanted to find out for myself, firsthand. So I arranged a visit to Hudson Valley Foie Gras in Ferndale, New York, the largest of the three foie gras farms in the country.

Terry McNally, co-owner of Fairmount's London Grill, joined me on the trip. Last month, the only foie gras dish she served was a hanger steak with foie gras green peppercorn butter. It was enough to attract protesters. According to McNally, their tactics have ranged from chants and name-calling (addressing individuals as "duck rapists") to firing bullhorns directly in her face. Other restaurant owners have taken foie gras items off their menus, but so far, McNally hasn't backed down. "We don't believe that, overall, we should be told what to eat," she says.

As we talked on the drive, it became clear that there is more at issue than animal welfare — the way McNally sees it, her business is at stake as well. London has 70 outdoor seats that she needs to turn over at least twice a night to make payroll. "With the bullhorns and the screaming, you can't sit there and dine," she says. "That's taking money away from the waiter and from us."

McNally believes the protesters' tactics cross the line. On one occasion, she says, the protesters insulted a diner by calling her fat. And they're also rattling McNally's employees. She's installed video cameras at her restaurant and may seek an injunction to curtail protests. (I planned to ask Cooney to respond, but he failed to show up for our pre-arranged interview. He later contacted me to explain that he missed our appointment due to being in jail for an unrelated protest. The charge was later dropped.)

McNally and I arrived at the farm around noon and met Izzay Yanay, co-owner of Hudson Valley. A former member of the Israeli Defense Force, Yanay projects an intense, almost defiant pride when showing off his farm. "Make them come — all of them," he says. He's entertained roughly two tours a week for the past 20 years, hosting chefs and journalists alike. He promises unrestricted access and encourages me to take pictures.

Dr. Lawrence Bartholf, a practicing livestock veterinarian who operates independent of the farm, accompanies us. Bartholf often chaperones Hudson Valley tours to answer questions related to the birds' physiology "It's one thing to use facts to argue a point," he says. "But when [protesters] use outright lies and distortions and half-truths, that's where I draw the line."

Ducks and geese have a natural ability to store fat in their livers for use during migration. Since the time of the pharaohs, people have been tube-feeding birds to stimulate that ability and eventually harvest their livers for consumption. Hudson Valley uses only the male Moulard, the offspring of a female Pekin and a male Muscovy. Unlike geese and pure-bred ducks, the Moulard is disease-resistant, less fragile and less nervous around humans.

Our first stop is the nursery. Scores of hatchlings, barely one hour old, mill about. A small piece of plywood divides the room, separating us from the chicks. As soon as we walk in, they swarm toward us. "They're looking for any kind of guidance," Yanay says above their chirping. "They will lose that behavior in a couple of days." To illustrate this, Yanay takes us to another nursery room where the ducks are a week old. When he walks into the room, the ducks scurry away.

When McNally cradles one of the chicks, Yanay tells us what he explains to kids who pet the ducks on the head to show affection. "A mother duck doesn't pet her ducks on the head," he says. "If you really want to show affection, puke in his mouth." We all laugh at Yanay's rehearsed joke, but it's a lesson necessary to understanding gavage. "Why am I saying that?" he asks. "Because ducks are not people."

Bartholf echoes the point when we arrive at the next building. After four weeks in the nursery, the ducks arrive here, where they will stay until they are 12 weeks old. Inside, it's dark, cool and dry — but the ducks appear to be comfortable. Yanay says they prefer it. "People would like it to be lighter and warmer, but they don't understand duck management," Bartholf explains. "We make a big mistake when we transfer our preferences onto another species."

At 2 p.m., the real show begins —Yanay takes us to watch the gavage process. The room houses four rows of pens. Each pen is 4 by 6 feet and contains 10 to 11 birds. There are approximately 350 ducks in the room and each one is at least 12 weeks old. The pens are remarkably clean; they sit above long troughs that channel away waste. Huge fans are churning, keeping the room cool.

Once the ducks arrive here, they're fed dry pellets made of corn and soy three times a day for the next 28 days, at which point they'll be slaughtered. During that period, the amount of food they are given will increase gradually from 80 grams to 400 grams.

More importantly, the ducks will be fed by the same person throughout the entire process. Stress in ducks can be assessed by measuring levels of corticosterone (a hormone produced in the adrenal gland) in their blood. Bartolf cites recent studies by Dr. Daniel Guémené, the leading expert on the physiological effects of gavage, showing that ducks with babies in the wild were under more stress than the ducks being fed through gavage. "Nature herself has a situation more stressed than we have here," he explains. Studies have also shown that as the ducks become more familiar with the human feeder, they become less stressed. To ensure that the workers will not miss a single feeding, Yanay provides free housing on the farm. Employees also have an incentive to treat the ducks with care — their bonuses are tied to the number and quality of the livers they deliver.

We watch as one of the workers climbs into a pen to begin the feeding. "The question you have to ask yourself," Yanay says, "is not what you would feel, but how do you see that these ducks feel." I was not sure what to expect. But what happened next, quite frankly, was anticlimactic.

The feeder sits down on a plastic stool and corrals the ducks behind a piece of plywood to segregate the ducks once he begins to feed them. He picks up a duck by the neck, places it between his legs and carefully slides a stainless steel funnel into the duck's esophagus, which is expandable and lined with cornified epithelium (layers of tough, callous skin). Unlike humans, ducks have no gag reflex.

The feeder then uses a cup to pour a calculated amount of food into the funnel. A small motor inside the funnel turns an auger to distribute the food quickly. Bartholf notes that the ducks can still breathe while the tube is in their mouths because, unlike humans, a duck's windpipe opens in the middle of the tongue. He then removes the tube, moves the duck aside and reaches behind the panel for another duck.

: David Snyder (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

The whole process lasts roughly 15 seconds.

I watched the process over and over — with different feeders and with ducks at various stages of the 28-day cycle — carefully inspecting every angle. It was the same each time: The ducks were unfazed, almost comfortable in the routine.

Was I missing something? The feeding looked nothing like the videos on the activists' web sites or the literature distributed at local protests. There was no regurgitation. No signs of mistreatment. No signs of suffering.

Were the feeders merely on company manners? Unlikely — feeding these ducks appears to be an acquired skill that is not easily faked.

Turns out we weren't the only ones enlightened by the tour. Two weeks earlier, restaurateur Danny Meyer — owner of New York City's Union Square Café and Gramercy Tavern, among other award-winning restaurants — visited Hudson Valley with two of his chefs and one of his general managers. "We felt ignorant having only read and heard things about foie gras production," Meyer shared via e-mail. "We wanted to see the farm for ourselves so that we would be able to intelligently inform ourselves on such a personal choice." After visiting, Meyer says he's comfortable with his restaurants serving foie gras. "Based on what they saw and felt, to a one, every person has chosen to continue to serve foie gras," he added. "Based on what I experienced, I am fully at peace with those choices."

(editorial@citypaper.net)