Following high-profile investigations at Gressingham Foods, the dominant supplier of duck meat for the UK market supplying the big retailers ASDA, Coop, Waitrose, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco, seventeen farm animal rescue centres, nineteen nationwide animal rights organisations (including PETA UK, Viva!, Animal Aid and OneKind), veterinarians, animal behaviourists, TV celebrities Peter Egan (Downtown Abbey), Evanna Lynch (Harry Potter), Megan McCubbin (Springwatch), and guitarist, singer and songwriter Sam Carter (The Architects) have signed a letter to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, George Eustice, urging the government to ban the commercial duck industry due to its alleged failings under the Animal Welfare Act, 2006. Evanna Lynch has also narrated the campaign video.
Claire Palmer, Animal Justice Project spokesperson states, “The Animal Welfare Act is in place to protect farmed animals, yet most farmed ducks in the UK are not afforded even the most basic protections. Under Section 9, animals must be provided with a ‘suitable environment’ and ‘be able to exhibit natural behaviour’. Yet the majority of farmed ducks in the UK have no access to open water; they cannot, therefore, bathe or swim, thus rendering the environment unsuitable and preventing the expression of natural behaviour. For this reason, we are calling upon the government to ban the industry”.
As part of their ‘Down with Duck Farming’ campaign, sky-reaching billboards have gone up in five cities across Britain expected to reach over half a million (565,795) people with the message that duck farming is at odds with UK legislation. It is also, according to pressure group Animal Justice Project, in violation of one of the Five Freedoms (specifically ‘Freedom to express normal behaviour’) and The Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations (2007) regarding consideration to the adaptation and ethological needs of ducks.
