Councillor Paul Blanchard of York has won an award from PETA for their Most Progressive Politician category. He was absolutely fundamental in getting foie gras banned from York Council’s offices. This was the first council to make such progress in the foie gras campaign.
Congratulations on winning the award. Well done, Paul!
Vegetarian aristocrats and their campaign against the cruelty of foie gras
UPDATED - A campaigning vegetarian duke and duchess are leading an aristocratic revolt against the department store Selfridges from within the walls of a 14th-century ancestral home in Scotland.
The Duke and Duchess of Hamilton, who maintain their position as the head of the peerage in Scotland from their 460-acre estate, Lennoxlove, near Edinburgh, have announced they will boycott the chain in protest at its continued sale of foie gras.
The duchess set out the family's position in a letter to Selfridges' chief executive Paul Kelly in which she described the force-feeding of duck and geese to make the liver pâté as a "grotesque abuse of animals". "As you must surely realise by now, long inflexible pipes are jammed down the throats of ducks and geese as many as three times a day, and several pounds of feed are forced into the animals' stomachs," she protested. "This cruel process causes the birds' livers to become diseased... Some birds have their necks torn open by the pipes, and sometimes the animals' internal organs rupture."
HRH Prince Charles - against Foie Gras ! The cruel pate is off the menu at Highgrove.
The Prince of Wales says a clear "NO" to foie gras - Prince Charles has confirmed that His Royal Highness does not approve of the controversial French pâté. He has instructed his chefs not to purchase the product so cruel, that it has been dubbed 'torture in a tin'
The Prince will not purchase from suppliers that also sell foie gras, and they will lose the Royal Warrant.
Since The Prince of Wales' position became clear, Government Minister Lord Rooker has said that the Government are currently considering loopholes in EU legislation which may allow a ban on imports of foie gras, because of public morality and animal welfare concerns.
Wendy can reveal the best kept secret about global warming - that animal farming and meat based diets are the main cause of global warming.
The less we rely on animal products, the better our chances of living a low-carbon lifestyle, and helping the fight against global warming.
All the experts know that meat and dairy products are a big problem.
Animal farming is responsible for 18% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, more than road and air travel combined. Amazingly, a vegan driving a V8 Range Rover is doing less harm to the environment than a meat eater on a bicycle.
Meat and Dairy - one of the main causes of global warming.
A YAFA supporter in North Yorkshire, who was concerned that a local primary school was having an event featuring several prizes for parents involving free group tickets (of up to 20 people) , and various individual tickets, to the Sunderland Greyhound Races.
YAFA activists immediatley sprung into action, and after some background research online and a phone call to the school, discovered that these prizes were sponsored by none other than William Hill, the bookmakers responsible for the deaths of 1000's of dogs every year in the greyhound racing industry. It was also discovered that William Kill are not only targetting schools, but also sport centres and
even hospices in search of new customers. Just how low will these animal killers stoop!!
The fact that William Hill are trying to get into schools to promote their evil business is totally disgraceful. Gambling ruins family life and sets a very poor example to the school children, more importantly for YAFA, thousands of dogs are killed , abandoned every year for failing to perform or are literally raced to death.
Several YAFA supporters phoned the school to express their concern that 'nights at the dogs' were being offered as prizes.
YAFA also contacted our friends at Greyhound Action and Animal Aid - who also contacted the school.
Later on that same day, the school decided to drop the prizes from their event, and see sense - they will not have anything more to do with Greyhound Racing.
A Victory for common sense.
YAFA would like to thank our compassionate supporter for bringing this to our attention and to the school involved for 'Doing the right thing'
This just goes to show that in one day, a group of people can make changes for the good and achieve results for the animals
YAFA welcomes the news that the new owner of the de Bretton Hospitality Group ,which includes 4 High Petergate , Harvilles Restaurant in Fossgate, Marmadukes Hotel, off Bootham, and the Lendal Tower complex on Lendal Bridge has officially banned foie gras from all it's restaurants with immediate effect
Managing director David Hattersley was horrifed when he realised that foie gras was on the menu when he took over the chain. He was recenlty quoted in the York Press as saying :
"I have banned foie gras from all our restaurants with immediate effect"
"It is disgraceful and will have no place in my businesses."
and
"Animal welfare and traditional farming methods are very important to us," said Mr Hattersley. "The way foie gras is produced is barbaric and it will never be served in my restaurants."
This comes just a few weeks after the campaign against this food dubbed 'torture in tin' saw York city council vote against foie gras, started by York city councillor Councillor Paul Blanchard and supported by YAFA.
Councillor Paul Blanchards response to this news :
"This is great news, and serves as an inspiration to others. It goes without saying that I very much welcome their decision.
"De Bretton is the first hotel and restaurant group in York to stop serving foie gras, and I hope that many more follow suit. I will be writing to the other vendors asking them to follow their excellent example.
"They are obviously a progressive and customer-led organisation, and their decision will be good for their business and good for animal welfare too."
On Thursday 4th October 2007 - Cllr Paul Blanchard successfully passed his motion through the council, against Foie Gras - Well done Paul.
YORK CITY COUNCIL HAVE VOTED AGAINST FOIE GRAS !
YAFA supporters demonstrated outside the council offices before the meeting, and members of the public joined in as well as local businessmen who had heard about our campaign against Foie Gras. As well as the demonstration, campaigners performed a stunt, with an animal rights activist being tied up and force-fed, to illustrate the cruelty behind Foie Gras.
The campaign was so successful that NOT ONE SINGLE COUNCILLOR VOTED IN FAVOUR OF FOIE GRAS - meaning that the motion was passed with a massive majority with only 2 Lib Dem councillors abstaining .
Yorks campaign against Foie Gras has helped to educate the public about the cruelty involved in Foie Gras production to such an extent that a recent local radio station conducted an independent poll of York people and found that 90% of York was in favour of a ban !!
THIS IS A MASSIVE STEP FORWARD FOR THE ANIMALS
York City Council have come down firmly against Foie Gras, the “delicacy of despair” and “torture in a tin”.
YAFA are expecting that this will shortly open the floodgates for other councils to vote against foie gras and soon the pressure will become overwhelming for a nationwide ban.
YAFA would like to thank everybody that helped with the campaign - especially Councillor Paul Blanchard who has worked so very hard to campaign against Foie Gras, see his website here
York Action For Animals staged a series of demonstrations, starting outside The Grange Hotel on Bootham. The Grange is one of the very few outlets that still supply the disgusting and inhumane food Foie Gras.
YAFA displayed a banner and gave out leaflets to passers-by. Passing motorists tooted their horns in support and gave YAFA the 'thumbs up' sign - proof that the people of York care about animals and support the campaign against Foie Gras. Some motorists even stopped their cars to talk to us and offer encouragement.
Please contact the manager of The Grange Hotel to express your concern and ask that they remove this 'delicacy of despair' from their menu, by emailing her at amie.postings@grangehotel.co.uk (please be polite in all your contact with the Grange Hotel) - for full contact details click HERE .
This marks the start of our campaign against The Grange Hotel, and the demonstrations will continue indefinitely until Foie Gras is removed from the menu.
YAFA's next stop
YAFA moved on to a shop in York city centre that still sells some real fur items. A banner was displayed outside the shop with the slogan 'Fur Trade - Death Trade', the police were called, but when officers arrived on the scene it soon became apparent to the store that we would not me moved on and that we had every right to carry out a peaceful protest. Members of the public showed their support and some even took the opportunity to join YAFA and then helped us to hand out leaflets.
After about 90 minutes, the owner of the shop approached YAFA members and promised to remove the offending items! He invited YAFA members into the store so that we could offer our advice and point out which items were made with fur and needed removing, which were then removed from sale.
YAFA then returned to The Grange Hotel for another hour of demonstrations about the 'Torture in a Tin' - which saw more support from the public for our campaign - one member of staff shouted abuse at YAFA through an open kitchen window as some guests were leaving who expressed dismay - a sign that our campaign is already starting to hit home with The Grange Hotel.
York Action For Animalsare pleasedto announce that 'RARITY' ,a local York restaurant selling exotic meats such as zebra , kangaroo, crocodile, ostrichand much more,has nowshut down.
Good bye and Good Riddance RARITY, you will not be missed.
YAFAmembers and supporterstravelled to London to show supportfor CAFTs campaign to get Harrods to stop selling real fur . Fur ranging including beaver, chinchilla, red fox, arctic fox, mink, musquash, rabbit, wolf, coyote and squirrel and more. Harrods is the last department store in the UK to still sell real fur.
If you can’t makeitto any demos , you can still politely contact Harrods tovoice your opposition and request that it takes the compassionate decision to n stop the sale of all real animal fur and adopt a fur-free policy. Remember to point out that fur farming is illegal in the UK, so they should come into line with the wishes of the British public and the democratic will of Parliament.
York Action For Animals ( YAFA ) took part in VIVA!'s national campaign against Tesco on Saturday 14th July.
Across the country, animal welfare campaigners demonstrated outside Tesco supermarket stores to express their outrage about Tesco killing and torturing live turtles in their Chinese stores.
The turtles are killed in Tesco outlets by shop assistants Turtles are trussed up in netting to stop them escaping. Because of their slow metabolism, turtles are extremely difficult to kill. The species now on sale by Tesco is the Chinese soft shell turtle which is killed by shop assistants in front of customers by cutting the animals head off with a knife. Tesco also sell turtles for customers to kill at home in any way they choose, usually by boiling alive or by removing the shell and cutting strips of flesh as required from the still living animal - 'for freshness'.
In York, members of YAFA demonstrated outside the Askham bar supermarket, and met with the Store Manager to expess our concerns and distribute leaflets to inform the public and later moved on to the Tesco supermarket at Clifton Moor.
Thousands of leaflets were given to shoppers bearing the slogan 'Every Little Hurts' and carried placards with the banner 'Tesco Torture Turtles'.
Shoppers were both shocked and horrified to discover how Tesco have abandoned all moral and ethical concerns about animal welfare overseas.
China has no animal welfare standards of any kind and Tescos are happy to take advantage of that, they claim they demand 'high standards of animal welfare' but you can't get worse than this. Why is one of the UK's largest supermarket chains doing something in China that they wouldn't dare do at home? They Know that British shoppers would be outraged to find live wild animals sold for meat in British stores. The money made from this abject torture all comes back to Britain. Obviously every little helps when it comes to profit.
See HERE for info about how to complain to TESCO and sign the petition
(broken) Spirit of The Horse- BAN ANIMAL CIRCUSES FROM YORK - YAFA DEMO
YAFA staged a series of peaceful demonstrations outside the animal circus (spirit of the horse) on Sat 28th and Sun 29th
Members of the public stopped to ask about the demonstration, many went away with leaflets and were shocked to hear that animal circuses were still allowed on council land. Many motorists driving past beeped their horns in support and gave YAFA the "thumbs up" sign of support.
The demonstrations were mostly peaceful, and supported by the Police who were friendly and supportive of the demonstrators throughout, but were marred by aggressive behavior from the staff of the animal circus.
YAFA heard rumors that the circus would be well behaved until the last show, for fear of reprisals, but when the circus knew that they were leaving the city of York, the pattern of behavior changed for the worse.
On one occasion, a circus employee drove towards the peaceful animal welfare campaigners with a lorry and then got out and waved his fist in the faces of female protesters.
The police were called, and circus officials were given a warning to behave properly by police officers.
YAFA says that York City Council should seriously consider whether York really wants these people here again. They have shown themselves to be bullies and pick on women to make their point, the consequences of staging circus shows in a civilized city like York will drag the area down.
York Action For Animals have now received the full support of elected
York City Councillor Paul Blanchard, who said :-
"I completely support York Action for Animals – they are non-violent and were peacefully demonstrating to make their point, which they are entitled to do so in a democracy. I would have been on the demo myself had I not had council commitments.
I believe the council should extend its existing ban on animal circuses on its land to include horses and dogs - which for some bizarre reason remain exempt - and I am going to do all I can to ensure that this becomes official council policy.
I am against all circuses, and always have been. Animals are sentient beings and are not there to be abused for our entertainment. As for their claim to have handed out free child tickets in certain areas - there is no educational value in seeing these once proud animals in an unnatural environment, and children should be encouraged to learn about all animal life in their natural surroundings – whether on TV nature shows, nature trails, or adventure breaks.
The idea of publicly humiliating an animal for fun is, in fact, no fun at all - it is sad, depressing and irresponsible. If the people from Sprit of the Horse are this cruel to other human beings, then how on earth will they be treating the horses?As far as this animal circus is concerned, I hope they never come back. Good riddance to them."
Supported by YAFA members, we had a large AdVan and animal costumes and loads of poster and leaflets to display and distribute, to help educate the people of York and the many foreign visitors it attracts.
YAFA support UNCAGED the national organisation that campaigns against vivisection and animal experimentation.
In the decade since it was founded, Uncaged has developed a unique campaigning approach which has placed it at the forefront of the anti-vivisection movement.
A highly qualified, experienced and dedicated team of staff brings in-depth knowledge of the political, legal, ethical and scientific issues relevant to animal experimentation.
York City councillor, Paul Blanchard (who recently tried to get the inhumane 'delicacy' of foie gras banned in the City of York), now has a petition and website to demand a UK ban on the sale of foie gras.
Foie gras is the liver of force-fed ducks and geese. To produce it, at 12 weeks old the birds are restrained and grain is forced down the throat through a pipe, a process that often results in physical injury. A massive quantity of food is forced into the birds, so that their livers are swollen to 6-10 times normal size; which makes movement and breathing difficult, as well as causing other health problems. EU research shows that force feeding leads to severe liver damage, great pain, and high mortality rates.The force-feeding of geese is already explicitly outlawed in many countries. UK law is inconsistent: existing animal cruelty laws prohibit production in the UK; but as the sale is still permitted, birds still suffer to satisfy UK demand, albeit in other countries, as the foie gras is imported.
YORK MP Hugh Bayley has backed a campaign to outlaw foie gras - by tabling a motion in Parliament.
The Early Day Motion (EDM) reinforces a call from York councillor Paul Blanchard to ban the sale of foie gras in the UK entirely.
Coun Blanchard said: "I'm really grateful to Hugh for backing my campaign. If this thing was happening with dogs, it would be stopped immediately. It's not a delicacy - it's the product of torture.
Please call, write or email your local MP as soon as you can and ask them to sign EDM 1247 on "SALE OF FOIE GRAS"
You can find out the contact details of your local MP here:
James Bond 007 supports campaign to ban foie gras.
York City councillor, Paul Blanchard's campaign to Ban Foie Gras has received support from James Bond star, Roger Moore.
As reported in the York Press:
The campaign has also now been backed by the RSPCA, Compassion In World Farming, People For Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Animal Aid and Uncaged.
Foie gras is the liver of force-fed geese or ducks, and its production is opposed by many animal rights groups.
Dr Marc Cooper, RSPCA senior scientific officer, said: "This is a cruel practice and undoubtedly results in unnecessary suffering. We would encourage any food retailers and restaurants that are currently selling foie gras to seriously reconsider their support for this cruel practice."
Andre Menache, of AnimalAid, said: "As a veterinary surgeon who has witnessed first-hand the suffering caused by force feeding of geese, I sincerely applaud Paul Blanchard's initiative."
Dr Dan Lyons, director of Uncaged, said: "The production of foie gras is one of the most sickening of humanity's abuses of our fellow creatures."
Saturday 17th March 2007: Day of Action Against M&S’ Use of the Farrowing Crate
YAFA took part in VIVA's National Day of Action against Marks and Spencers - Over a dozen members of YAFA took part, with a stall on Parliament St. and demonstrators outside the entrance with banners and leaflets. Over 1500 leaflets were distributed to M&S customers who were very supportive of the campaign. Many M&S customers previously thought that the company cared about animal welfare but were shocked and dissappointed to hear about the cruelty involved, and said that they felt that they had been mislead by M&S about the companys' animal welfare standards.
10.00 to 4.00 Parliament Street outside Mark and Spencers.
For Contact Details of how to complain to M&S - See HERE
Why target M&S?
as quoted from VIVA:
One of the greatest exponents of rhetoric is Marks & Spencer who have built an image of a company selling high-quality, premium-priced foods where good animal welfare is paramount:
“We’ve spent years developing livestock production specifications to ensure high standards of animal health and welfare. We ensure our animals have freedom – from hunger and thirst, discomfort, pain, injury and disease, fear and distress and freedom to express normal behaviour."
Try telling that to a sow in a farrowing crate! Despite this hyperbole, M&S still sell meat from animals reared in these deeply repugnant systems. Yes, they do sell some free-range pork products and, yes, some of their sows are kept outdoors but as a retailer which claims to be conscientious, it is unacceptable that they should draw a veil over their large scale use of farrowing crates.
HRH Prince Charles - against Foie Gras !
A YAFA supporter in North Yorkshire, who was concerned that a local primary school was having an event featuring several prizes for parents involving free group tickets (of up to 20 people) , and various individual tickets, to the Sunderland Greyhound Races.
YAFA welcomes the news that the new owner of the de Bretton Hospitality Group ,which includes 4 High Petergate , Harvilles Restaurant in Fossgate, Marmadukes Hotel, off Bootham, and the Lendal Tower complex on Lendal Bridge has officially banned foie gras from all it's restaurants with immediate effect
Please contact the manager of The Grange Hotel to express your concern and ask that they remove this 'delicacy of despair' from their menu, by emailing her at 
York Action For Animals
YAFA staged a series of peaceful demonstrations outside the animal circus (spirit of the horse) on Sat 28th and Sun 29th
York Action For Animals have now received the full support of elected 
Crate 
National Day of Action against Marks and Spencers - Over a dozen members of YAFA took part, with a stall on Parliament St. and demonstrators outside the entrance with banners and leaflets. Over 1500 leaflets were distributed to M&S customers who were very supportive of the campaign. Many M&S customers previously thought that the company cared about animal welfare but were shocked and dissappointed to hear about the cruelty involved, and said that they felt that they had been mislead by M&S about the companys' animal welfare standards.
