Honking Mad ‘Goose’ Tells California: ‘I Am Not Down Filling!’
A 7-foot-tall, half-plucked “goose” visited a San Jose, California, bus stop today to mark the launch of a fleet of new PETA ads that have just gone up in 15 transit shelters throughout Silicon Valley. They show a goose’s face next to the words “I Am Not Down Filling or Foie Gras. I Am a Living Being—Just Like You” and come as the courts may be on their way to reinstating California’s foie gras ban, as a judge recently stated that foie gras production is “absolutely cruel.”
“Just like us, geese are made of flesh and blood, and they feel pain and fear when plucked for their feathers or force-fed for foie gras,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is encouraging everyone to practice compassion for these gentle birds by keeping down-filled jackets off their holiday shopping lists—and foie gras off their holiday tables.”
Birds used in down production are often pinned to the ground by workers who violently yank out their feathers while they’re still alive. Foie gras is produced by shoving steel pipes down birds’ throats and pumping huge amounts of grain into their stomachs several times a day for weeks in order to sicken them and enlarge their livers. At the slaughterhouse, they are hung upside down, their throats are slit, and they are left to bleed to death.
