Despite being loved across the world, with their quirky personalities and joyful sounds, millions of ducks are tragically farmed and slaughtered every year for the dinner table.
UK duck farming is inherently cruel and should not be allowed to continue under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.
"Consumers are largely unaware that ducks on UK farms rarely have access to an open source of water. A duck’s most basic instincts – swimming and bathing – are prevented by companies like Gressingham Foods. I implore everyone to see the individual animals behind the products you see on the supermarket shelves, and to stop supporting such mass cruelty. Animal Justice Project’s ‘Down with Duck Farming’ campaign is essential to building a kinder, brighter future for these aquatic birds." Evanna Lynch, Actor and Activist
These water-loving birds are unable to access open water on most UK farms, prohibiting them from bathing and swimming. A duck’s most basic instinct is withheld for the sake of profits. Ducks are suffering by the million on UK farms.
Animal Justice Project is leading the fight against this foul industry, having investigated Britain’s largest duck producer, Gressingham Foods, three times since 2019, as well as a small-scale duck producer, Pastures Poultry. Duck farming violates the rights of these birds.
Ducks had their delicate necks snapped, were trapped under artificial lighting for as long as two days, were not afforded any open water for bathing or swimming, were savagely thrust down into metal shackles and left hanging for as long as 14 minutes (SEVEN times the legal limit) and thrown down waste chutes without checking to see if they were dead.
Despite clear law-breaking inside Gressingham Foods’ slaughterhouse, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) deemed it would “not be in the public interest” to take legal action. The Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (WATOK) legislation was breached, and many ducks suffered as a result, yet the abattoir saw no repercussions and no justice was served.
There was public outrage after national media reached millions with these heart-wrenching findings and over 71,000 concerned citizens signed a petition to demand that the CPS take action.
"Section 9 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 requires that the needs of an animal must be met to the extent required by good practice. An animal's needs include a suitable environment and the need to be able to exhibit normal behaviour patterns. Ducks being farmed in the UK often have no access to water to bathe or swim in. Bathing and swimming is the most normal of behaviours for a duck and no suitable environment should ever not provide for it. Sadly, animal welfare law is often predicated on the commercial needs of industry, which in this case is the duck farming industry. However, it is difficult to understand what normal behaviours the law is trying to protect, or the suitable environment it is trying to provide, if access to water for aquatic birds like ducks is not required." - Edie Bowles, Solicitor and Co-Founder at Advocates for Animals, the UK’s first Animal Protection Law Firm
In 2022, a deadly strain of the virus, H5N1, was contracted by a human in the UK for the first time. In recent years, Gressingham Foods has had to kill over one hundred thousand ducks, across multiple farms, due to bird flu outbreaks, including thousands as recently as March 2022.
Duck farming can create breeding grounds for infectious diseases; the results are becoming more apparent, foreshadowing an uncertain future. Three in four of the world’s emerging infectious diseases originate from animals, and are perpetuated by animal agriculture.
"Swimming and bathing in water is very important for ducks. It is inhumane to farm them without any opportunities to do so. Such duck farming should be banned." - Andrew Knight MANZCVS, DipECAWBM (AWSEL), DipACAW, PhD, FRCVS, PFHEA
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