A colleague on a web forum I subscribe to posted the following little exchange from the "GINjA & SHOgA" Restaurant which is based in Cape Town, South Africa. In response to a mail asking the owners to re-think serving foie gras, the arrogant turnips wrote back saying:

"Dear ————
Lordy, lordy, once again we have another Foie Gras critic. If you don’t like it, don’t order it…. Funny thing is, most livers come from ducks today as they quite happily over eat and that distends their livers… "

What an educational answer. That should put us softie, animal welfare people right in our places: ‘ducks…quite happily over eat’.

Amazingly, having watched birds - including wild waterfowl - for thirty years, read up on birds, discussed and studied birds, followed birds around the world etc etc I have to admit I simply didn’t know that ducks will quite ‘happily’ give themselves engorged, swollen, painful livers. I’ve looked at literally hundreds of thousands of ducks and never realised that they were just WAITING for the chance to eat so much it could kill them.

I wonder why for years people have got up at dawn to force-feed geese with funnels if they could just keep a few ducks that would ‘happily’ stuff themselves with so much food they’d almost burst? All that effort gone to waste…

And the authors I’m going to have to write to so that they can get in touch with these specimens of humanity and understanding and REALLY learn about ducks….

Give me a fricking break…

Unless this is a wind-up (or a mischievous prank that is causing me to be unintentionally libelous), can I suggest fellow eco-travellers, that if you’re looking for somewhere to eat in Cape Town that reflects your vision of a better world and that doesn’t involve torturing wildfowl you look elsewhere?