Sheriffs investigate Two Rock duck ranch after whistleblower video

An animal rights group is accusing a longtime Petaluma duck ranch of animal cruelty after one of its members got a job at the farm and secretly videotaped what she believed was evidence of mistreatment.|

An animal rights group is accusing a longtime Petaluma duck ranch of animal cruelty after one of its members got a job at the farm and secretly videotaped what she believed was evidence of mistreatment. Sheriff's officials who investigated the group's allegations said Wednesday, however, they found no evidence of animal cruelty at Reichardt Duck Farm.

The group, Mercy for Animals, brought the video to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office, which launched an investigation into practices at the Middle Two Rock ranch. The investigation brought deputies, a detective, two veterinarians and an animal control officer to the property Wednesday.

Sheriff's officials said the preliminary investigation found the farm followed industry practices and did not violate criminal law.

'The allegations were not factual,' said Dave Rupiper, a Petaluma veterinarian who assisted deputies and whose practice specializes in birds.

Reichardt Duck Farm was founded in 1901 in San Francisco and moved to Petaluma in 1912, according to the company's website. The farm was raising about 200,000 ducks Wednesday, the Sheriff's Office said.

'My job was to evaluate the functioning and workings of the farm and I think they are an upstanding organization that really cares for the animals' welfare,' said Rupiper, who had no prior experience with the ranch.

Yet Matt Rice, director of investigations at national animal protection charity Mercy for Animals, said that if the practices his organization observed are industry standard 'then the industry standard is in violation of California's anti-cruelty laws.'

The Los Angeles-based group's undercover investigators apply for jobs at farms across the country and go work for the first one that hires them, a process Rice said aims to be a random look at the practices of what he called factory farms. The organization was founded in 1999 and they began undercover investigations in 2002.

A woman affiliated with the group got a job as a barn cleaner this summer at the west Petaluma ranch and used a hidden camera to document things such as injuries to ducklings and access to food and water.

Rice described the duck bill trimming process at the ranch, which uses heat to trim bills to prevent pecking. He said the practice is cruel and causes longterm pain for the animals.

He also described footage of open wounds and ducklings getting caught beneath the wire flooring and other circumstances that prevented them from accessing food and water. 'She reported this to management at the farm and was met with indifference,' Rice said.

She quit after about a month, Rice said.

Rupiper, the veterinarian, said he could not go into detail about the information he provided in a report to the Sheriff's Office but that what he saw did not support the allegations.

The activists 'took very normal behaviors in a large-scale setting and found the one or two instances that may occur from time to time, but that wasn't the norm,' Rupiper said. 'It's a beautiful farm with nice people; they are good men and have good practices,' Rupiper said. 'I'm very pleased with everything we saw out there and I think that whoever organized the whole ordeal really did a disservice to a family-owned and operated local business.'

The ranch's general manager, John Reichardt, could not be reached for comment. A call to the ranch was not immediately returned.

Other media reports mistakenly identified the farm as a smaller farm run by a different branch of the Reichardt family.

Jen Reichardt said that the well-known Sonoma County Poultry, Liberty Ducks owned by her father, Jim Reichardt, was not visited by the Sheriff's Office Wednesday and is not under investigation.

'Our ranches are on different roads, they are different places, different farms,' Jen Reichardt said. 'Their ranch is four times the size of ours. I cannot stress strongly enough that this has nothing to do with Sonoma County Poultry.'

When deputies arrived at Reichardt Duck Farm on Wednesday morning, ranch personnel were very cooperative and 'took us through their procedures and duck processing plant,' he said.

They answered questions about the farm and took suggestions, according to Brown. A sheriff's evidence technician took photos.

The Sheriff's Office is preparing its report to send to the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office. Prosecutors will review their findings and determine whether anything found falls under animal cruelty crimes. Sheriff's investigators are not recommending any charges.

Mercy for Animals is holding a news conference at 11 a.m. Thursday at a hotel in downtown San Francisco where they will show footage from the undercover video. The video will also be posted on the group's website.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.

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