Foie Gras Firm Sues Activists Over Raids

A Sonoma-based foie gras company has filed suit against a group of animal rights activists that claims they are conspiring to destroy the liver pate industry by repeatedly breaking into the company’s Central Valley duck farm and stealing fowl.

Charging that they are victims of “economic sabotage,” Sonoma Foie Gras owners Guillermo and Junny Gonzalez are asking that a San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge put a stop to the raids and end episodes of vandalism at a restaurant of which they are part owners.

“My clients believe they’ve been terrorized for too long,” said San Francisco attorney Robert Julian, who represents the foie gras company. “We did not pick this fight.”

The defendants insist that Sonoma Foie Gras is breaking the law by treating its ducks inhumanely; they have vowed to continue their raids until the practice ends.

“We’re not going to rule out any future rescue efforts, as long as they keep torturing these animals,” said defendant Bryan Pease.

Foie gras is the liver of ducks or geese that have undergone “enhanced” feeding to fatten the animal’s liver and produce a richer taste. Activists say the practice amounts to force-feeding and that the birds suffer when metal feeding tubes are inserted into their bills and their throats are filled with food. Foie gras producers say the animals are not in pain, and that ducks’ throats are meant to hold large quantities of food -- a capability that aids seasonal migration.

The suit that Sonoma Foie Gras filed on Monday followed a raid on the company’s farm in September that was chronicled in the Los Angeles Times. Pease, and fellow defendants Kath Rogers and Carla Brauer and one other named Joe in the lawsuit, sneaked onto the farm grounds near Stockton and took four ducks. The activists also videotaped the incident and posted images on a Web site.

Sonoma Foie Gras charges that the activists have enlisted the media in their cause by taking reporters along on such raids in an effort to publicize their cause. Neither The Times nor its correspondent was named as a defendant in the case.

The plaintiffs say that, in addition to raiding the farm, animal activists have destroyed restaurant property.

Sonoma Saveurs, a restaurant that Sonoma Foie Gras was planning to open in Sonoma, was hit by vandals who spray painted walls and caused $50,000 in damage.

The Animal Protection and Rescue League and In Defense of Animals on Tuesday insisted that they had nothing to do with that incident.