Four animal rights activists with a group calling itself the Animal Protection and Rescue League took along a reporter for the Los Angeles Times during a September raid in which the activists stole four ducks from a duck shed owned by Sonoma Foie Gras.
Activists Bryan Pease, Kath Rodgers, Carla Brauer and a fourth individual who asked the LA Times reporter not to identify him, broke into the shed and took four Peking-Muscovy ducks. The activists told LA Times reporter Marcelo Rodriguez that they had carried out similar operations in the past as part of what they called “the underground railroad for ducks.”
The group apparently decided to ask a reporter to tag along after the media had largely ignored a video of the sheds the group had produced earlier in the year that was then released to the media by a group called Gourmet Cruelty (it did not help that local authorities concluded that animals in the sheds were being properly cared for).
Sonoma Foie Gras owner Guillermo Gonzalez, who has been the subject of relentless harassment by animal rights activists, aid that he would pursue legal action against the activists if they did, in fact, steal animals from his property. Gonzalez told the Times,
Unfortunately, some activists hold animals in higher esteem than they do humans. Our animals are treated humanely, and anybody who enters our farm can see that.
Source:
Activists Take Ducks From Foie Gras Shed. Marcelo Rodriguez, The Los Angeles Times, September 18, 2003.