Foie gras protest at L’enclume (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Foie gras protest at L’enclume

2:36pm Friday 15th June 2007 in Cumbria news By The Westmorland Gazette

A GROUP of animal rights campaigners held a three-hour protest outside a Michelin-starred restaurant in Cartmel.

Four members of Vegetarians International Voice for Animals (VIVA) gathered outside L'enclume on Friday night (June 8) in protest at the restaurant's use of foie gras, the liver of a goose or duck that has been fed substantial amounts of corn.

The group brandished banners and handed out leaflets during the peaceful demonstration, which was monitored by police, standing outside the Cavendish Street eatery from 7pm to 9pm.

Customers of the acclaimed restaurant were told to use the back door to enter the premises, according to police.

The protest was part of VIVA's long-running campaign to urge restaurants to drop foie gras from their menus and to encourage people to boycott establishments that sell it.

VIVA campaigns manager Justin Kerswell said: "There is nothing humane about mechanically inducing disease in a bird by forcing a pipe down its throat and making it consume such an abnormal quantity of food that its liver expands many times its normal size.

"We are asking local people to reject it and make Cartmel, and all of Cumbria, a foie gras free zone."

No one at L'enclume was available for comment.