Dear supporters, I am awed and humbled to have over 100,000 signatures on this petition which I started just 3 weeks ago. It is obvious that there are so many kind and compassionate people who care deeply about animal welfare and I hope this fact will convince the California Farmer's Market Associations to enact a ban on foie gras. If this petition is successful, I plan to elevate it to the state level, and try to get the California state ban on foie gras re-instated. I want to bring attention to a closely related topic. While foie gras is one of the most well known examples of animal abuse, it is really the tip of a massive iceberg when it comes to human cruelty to animals. Production of meat, dairy and egg products involves routine and unspeakable cruelty, and affects a staggering 10 billion animals per year in the United States alone. More than 95% of farm animals in the US are raised in what are called "factory farms". The conditions in which these animals are raised and slaughtered can only be described as a living nightmare. Here are only a few examples of what happens on these farms: 1. Most chickens raised for meat spend their entire lives in dark, overcrowded, waste-filled warehouses with tens of thousands of other chickens. Each chicken has no more room than a sheet of paper to move around or flap their wings. The air is filled with dust and ammonia from bird droppings, causing a high rate of infections and disease. The birds' beaks are sliced off with a hot razor blade. The chickens have been bred by farmers to have unnaturally large breasts and thighs, but their legs have not kept pace, so many of them suffer broken legs or severe skeletal deformities. 25 Million Chickens are killed in the US EVERY DAY. 2. Chickens raised for egg production don't have it any better. Every day in the US, over a million new baby chicks are hatched by the egg industry, destined to replace "spent hens" who can no longer lay enough eggs. About 700,000 of these baby chicks are male, and will never lay eggs. These "useless" male chicks are disposed of in one of two ways: (a) being dropped (alive) into giant grinding machines, or (b) being stuffed into large trash bags and put out with the trash. The ground-up chicks become animal feed or fertilizer. The trash bagged chicks eventually suffocate or starve under the weight of thousands of their fellows. 3. Cows are mammals, and to produce milk - just like humans - they must be pregnant with a calf. Young female cows are therefore impreganted via artificial insemination at a young age, when they are mere juveniles biologically. They gestate for 9 months (again like humans) and give birth to a baby calf. Calves are taken from their mothers at 1-2 days after birth which causes immense distress to both mother and calf. Male calves are sold for veal, beef, or killed on the spot. Female calves become slaves to the dairy like their mothers. When a mother cow's milk production declines (usually after about 5 pregnancies), she is dragged to the slaughterhouse to become hamburger meat. 4. Mother pigs are impregnated over and over to make more pigs. They are treated as a "piglet making machine." In most cases the sow lives on a concrete or wooden floor, immobilized between metal bars so she cannot stand up or turn around for most of her adult life. All the while, she is being repeatedly impregnated to produce as many baby piglets as possible. The baby piglets are taken away from the mother within days or weeks after birth. Baby male piglets are sliced open by workers with razor blades to have their testicles removed, all without anesthesia. Piglets are expected to grow fast enough to produce profitably-sized adults; if they aren't growing fast enough, workers routinely swing them by their tails and bash them against the concrete floor to kill them. When the pigs are ready for slaughter, they are "stunned" by electricity or with a bolt gun, and then a worker sticks a knife into the pig to bleed it out. Needless to say, stunning is often inadequate, and workers routinely end up sticking and hacking apart pigs who are fully conscious and aware. 5. Cows raised for beef suffer the same kind of terror and violence at human hands: castration without pain killers, burning off of horn buds, clipping off of tails without anesthesia, branding, intense confinement in their own filth, etc. Slaughter of cows is especially grotesque: their brain is caved in with a bolt gun, then while kicking and twitching they are cut and bled out; then an assembly line of workers begins cutting of skin and hacking apart the animal. Since the assembly lines move so fast, cows are routinely inadequately stunned, so their bodies are torn apart while they are fully conscious and aware. All of the incidents described above happen every day in the US, hundreds-of-thousands or millions of times over. If you think that they do not happen on "organic" or "free range" or "humane" farms, do not be fooled. Those labels unfortunately have little meaning and are mainly there to placate the consumer. By signing my petition you have all demonstrated your compassion for animals, and I believe your compassion extends to all animals. If the plight of the ducks and geese used for foie gras has moved you, I ask you to also consider the terrible suffering involved in more everyday products such as hamburgers, hot dogs, meatballs, chicken, and pork chops. We are taught from birth that we need to eat these foods to get "enough protein" and they are deeply ingrained within our culture, but we are never told these products are the result of torture and immense suffering. The truth is that we can get all of the nutrition we need from a purely plant-based diet. Millions of compassionate people are finding a better way to live, and transitioning to a vegetarian and ultimately vegan diet. Please consider the suffering of all animals at human hands, and make the decision to explore a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle. (There are many Internet resources to help you with this journey.) On behalf of ducks, geese, and all animals, I thank you. Mohan Gurunathan p.s. I have linked a video below which will serve as evidence to all the farm industry practices I describe above. It is important but please be warned, some of the footage is graphic.