Birds TORTURED for The North Face

The North Face stuffs its jackets and sleeping bags with feathers from birds who are force-fed for the cruel production of foie gras.

Force-feeding is a painful process in which birds have tubes rammed down their throats and their stomachs pumped so full of corn mush that their livers swell to as much as 10 times their normal size. Foie gras producers boost their profits by selling the feathers from these force-fed birds.

Other birds used for down are often pinned down as hurried workers yank fistfuls of feathers from the birds' sensitive bodies while they are still alive, often plucking them so violently that they rip open the birds' delicate skin, and then sew up the gaping wounds using a needle and thread and no painkillers.

The vast majority of birds used for down spend their entire lives in crowded, filthy conditions on factory farms. When they are sent to slaughter, their throats are slit—often while fully conscious—and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks. All down comes from birds who suffer and die violently and painfully.

Birds TORTURED for The North Face