Foie Gras and Fur Ban: Government Could Betray Animals and British Public

Anyone with good sense and a kind heart would agree that there is no place in the modern UK for fur or foie gras – both of which are products of severe and prolonged cruelty. The government has promised to ban the sale and import of these products, but it has now been reported that some senior ministers want to abandon these plans. We cannot let this happen!

Foie Gras and Fur: Outsourcing Cruelty

Both of these vile products are derived from abuse so disturbing that it’s illegal to produce them in the UK. Yet our borders are still open to them – a contradiction that gives companies the green light to import and sell these appalling products. The government must honour its commitment to have and promote the highest standards of animal welfare and close our borders to cruelty.

Broken Promises by the Government

We are a national of animal-lovers, and the vast majority of British people reject these products. Over a million Brits have signed petitions in support of a sales and import ban on fur and foie gras. The government has long promised to close our borders to such atrocities by implementing an import ban on both foie gras and fur – legislation that is welcomed by everyone in this country except the inherently selfish.

If the government were to backtrack, it would be betraying not only the animals – who desperately need a caring nation to defend them – but also the public, which has made its opposition clear.

The Foie Gras Industry

To produce foie gras, ducks and geese are force-fed several times a day until their livers become diseased and swell to around 10 times their natural size. Imagine being forced to eat 20 kilograms of pasta each day. That’s the human equivalent of the nearly 2 kilograms of food that’s typically forced down these birds’ throats every single day.

PETA exposés have revealed that the long metal feeding pipes leave some birds so badly injured that they have holes in their necks, broken beaks, and inflammation of the oesophagus. By the end of their short lives, many birds are unable to walk normally, suffer from bone disease, or even struggle to breathe because their enlarged livers compress their lungs.

The Fur Industry

Before their fur is imported and sold, foxes, rabbits, minks, and other animals spend their entire lives confined to filthy cages.

Unable to engage in natural behaviour, the sensitive animals on fur farms often go mad from confinement. As a result, some mutilate themselves, chewing on their own legs or tails. At the end of their short lives, they are killed in gruesome ways. Fur farmers poison, gas, electrocute, or drown them – or even skin them alive.

These farms also pose a risk to public health. As minks are particularly susceptible to respiratory illnesses, mink farms around the world are dangerous breeding grounds for diseases and have been identified as COVID-19 hotspots.

What Are the Next Steps?

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You can speak out.

Send your MP a message urging them to tell the government to keep the foie gras and fur import bans in the Animals Abroad Bill.

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