TWO Dorset animal welfare groups have teamed up for Freedom Food’s Farm Animal Week – and they want residents to help them out.

Compassionate Dorset and West Dorset Animal Aid have come together to promote their latest animal welfare campaign, which aims to remove foie gras from restaurant menus across Dorset.

Both groups attended the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and have more than 400 signatures so far for their petition, which they will now present to restaurants in Dorset to persuade them to change their menus.

Anna Watson, co-ordinator for Compassionate, Dorset, said: “Foie gras is the enlarged, diseased liver of geese or ducks which are force-fed several times a day by having large metal tubes shoved down their throats.

“They’re intensively farmed, usually in small metal cages. The fatty liver is painful for them, their internal organs can rupture and more than one million of these animals die every year, but the liver is seen as a delicacy by some people.”

She explained the seriousness of the campaign message, saying: “Many restaurants in Dorset are committed to serving local, free range food with better animal welfare standards because this is what their customers want, but they still serve foie gras.

“It’s quite a contradiction.”

“Most establishments don't serve foie gras because the production of it is banned in this country, but sadly there is no ban in this country on importing it and there are a number of restaurants, including some in Dorset, which still feature it on their menu.

“We’d like to see it taken off menus and banned from being imported in this country.”

Anna said there has been some progress at Dorset food establishments as a result of public pressure via social media.

For more information visit ciwf.org.uk/our-campaigns/foie-gras/