Taking of down and feathers from live geese - an endless story?! FOUR PAWS Marcus Müller Live Feather Plucking Roundtable 16 Feburary 2011, Brussels

1) Why Four Paws went into the topic Four Paws was the first organisation publishing live plucking video in 1991 Big animal welfare problem Big threat for our cooperation partners in the geese meat industry

2) Situation in the EU Live plucking and harvesting in Poland, Hungary, Germany and Romania etc EU is the biggest industrial geese producer in the world (china may be bigger by number of geese but not in industrial scale, yet) What kind of birds are live plucked How many birds are live plucked Local differences

3) Experience with the situation lack of care and controll no enforcement illegal practises/black market

4) Risks discrediting the meat market and european geese industry huge animal wefare problems spreading desease by live plucking bregades impossible to controll (black/ not stationary/tricks) weak legal position of willing authorities due to lack of clear legislation tactics of the industry the one % tactic secret of the good harvesting farms the black sheep tactic

6 ) Solution Total ban without loopholes Strong enforcement

7) Benefits of a ban securing the european geese meat market against non EU competitors upgrading slaughter down and making slaughter down a profitable replacement of live plucked down more transparancy and consumer protection resulating in trust of the consumer in geese meat ending a long term animal welfare drama ending a huge risk for animal desease controll ending a tradition of black market and tax fraud and bad practise in the down trade.

8) Problems: No change of finding solutions with the industry Good producers are under big threat by competitiors acting with price dumping possible due to live plucking. Lack of in the field knowledge at the EU Lack of enforcement in cetrain member states Use of current EFSA report to legalize live plucking Industry organisations an d controlls are not usefull and real cooperationis not likely.

Thank you for your attention!