AN animal rights campaigner has taken a radical step to get her protest against the sale of foie gras in a famous store noticed – by changing her name.
Abi Izzard, who works for the campaign group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Foun-dation), has officially changed her name to StopFortnumAndMasonFoieGrasCruelty.com.
The 27-year-old changed her name by deed poll this month to try and raise awareness of the sale of Foie Gras in the upper class store.
It forms part of a campaign by PETA to try and stop the London store selling the controversial food.
The change was a simple one for StopFortnumandMasonFoieGrasCruelty.com, who is still to come up with a shorter version of the name, but has seen her having to update her driving licence and even learning an entirely new signature.
“The process was really easy to change it,” said StopFortnumandMasonFoieGrasCruelty.com, who comes from Malvern in Worcestershire and now lives in London.
“It was long winded afterwards getting my drivers licence and the like changed. The hard part is the fact that I have a new signature, it’s not easy to remember to sign for things with my new one.
“We only launched the campaign on Tuesday so now I’m only in the early stages of using it so I do keep slipping back into using Abi by accident without thinking.”
StopFortnumandMasonFoieGrasCruelty.com says she has been helped by the support she received from her parents and two sisters.
“They’ve been really supportive of me, I do have some friends who think I’m a bit mad and really aren’t sure what to call me,” she added.
“We’ve been trying to think of a shortening, at the moment dot-com seems like the best idea but we’re not sure.”
Foie Gras is the liver of a goose, produced using force feeding techniques, with birds often kept in cages and in poor conditions, the production of Foie Gras is banned in the UK under animal cruelty legislation as well as several other European countries and parts of the US.
According to StopFortnumandMasonFoieGrasCruelty.com, the campaign has already spoken to bosses at Fortnum and Mason and shown them the conditions they claim the animals are being raised in.
“I shall keep the name until they stop selling this and supporting the cruelty to animals,” added StopFortnumandMasonFoieGrasCruelty.com, who joined PETA 18 months-ago.
Before that she worked for Worcestershire County Council’s highways department for several years after graduating from Swansea university with a degree in International Relations.
“They know how cruel it is, we’ve shown them, and yet still they sell it in store.
“The force feeding is barbaric, it causes all sorts of health problems. Pipes have to be shoved down the birds throats and that can slit their throats, preventing them from being able to drink and damaging vital organs.
“Hopefully they will stop soon, there’s a lot of pressure on them to give it up.”
