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Do Lobsters Suffer When Boiled?

lopaka

lopaka

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Study: Unlikely lobsters feel pain in boiling water

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 Posted: 9:34 AM EST (1434 GMT)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- A new study out of Norway concludes it's unlikely lobsters feel pain, stirring up a long-simmering debate over whether Maine's most valuable seafood suffers when it's being cooked.

Animal activists for years have claimed that lobsters are in agony when being cooked, and that dropping one in a pot of boiling water is tantamount to torture.

The study, funded by the Norwegian government and written by a scientist at the University of Oslo, suggests lobsters and other invertebrates such as crabs, snails and worms probably don't suffer even if lobsters do tend to thrash in boiling water.

"Lobsters and crabs have some capacity of learning, but it is unlikely that they can feel pain," concluded the 39-page report, aimed at determining if creatures without backbones should be subject to animal welfare legislation as Norway revises its animal welfare law.

Lobster biologists in Maine have maintained for years that the lobster's primitive nervous system and underdeveloped brain are similar to that of an insect. While lobsters react to different stimuli, such as boiling water, the reactions are escape mechanisms, not a conscious response or an indication of pain, they say.

"It's a semantic thing: No brain, no pain," said Mike Loughlin, who studied the matter when he was a University of Maine graduate student and is now a biologist at the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission.

The Norwegian report also reinforces what people in the lobster industry have always contended, said Bob Bayer, executive director of the Lobster Institute, a research and education organization in Orono.

"We've maintained all along that the lobster doesn't have the ability to process pain," Bayer said.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, has made lobster pain part of its Fish Empathy Project, putting out stickers and pamphlets with slogans such as "Being Boiled Hurts. Let Lobsters Live." Group supporters regularly demonstrate at the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland.

PETA's Karin Robertson called the Norwegian study biased, saying the government doesn't want to hurt the country's fishing industry.

"This is exactly like the tobacco industry claiming that smoking doesn't cause cancer," she said.

Robertson said many scientists believe lobsters do feel pain. For instance, a zoologist with The Humane Society of the United States made a written declaration that lobsters can feel pain after a chef dismembered and sauteed a live lobster to prepare a Lobster Fra Diavolo dish on NBC's "Today" show in 1994.

It's debatable whether the debate will ever be resolved.

The Norwegian study, even while saying it's unlikely that crustaceans feel pain, also cautioned that more research is needed because there is a scarcity of scientific knowledge on the subject.

And, many consumers will always hesitate at placing lobsters in boiling pots of water.

New Englanders may feel comfortable cooking their lobsters, but people outside the region often feel uneasy about boiling a live creature, said Kristen Millar, executive director of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council.

"Consumers don't generally greet and meet an animal before they eat it," she said.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/02 ... index.html
 
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Am I imagining it, or was it once the case that babies were thought not to be able to feel pain?
 
I believe that was part of the rationale behind not giving baby boys anesthesia for circumcision :shock: (that, and perhaps concerns about giving babies anesthetics?).
 
I was told by a chef that it's actually the quickest way to kill them, the alternative being shoving a pin into their brain. And their brain is very difficult to find.

So - shove 'em in boiling water, or poke holes in their head?
 
While lobsters react to different stimuli, such as boiling water, the reactions are escape mechanisms, not a conscious response or an indication of pain, they say.
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when i pour boiling water on, say, my ex-boyfriend or the bloke who stole my bike (a couple of little fantasies of mine), and he tries to run away, can i follow this logic and assume that he is experiencing an "escape mechanism"?
 
beakboo said:
Am I imagining it, or was it once the case that babies were thought not to be able to feel pain?
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yes and that's why people generally don't stick them in boiling water and then eat them anymore.
 
Well, it can hardly be more torturous than being strung up and having your throat sliced. That is the preferred method of dispatch for most edible beasts, I think.

That this is an issue at all is interesting, and definitely food for thought.
 
PETA's Karin Robertson called the Norwegian study biased, saying the government doesn't want to hurt the country's fishing industry.

"This is exactly like the tobacco industry claiming that smoking doesn't cause cancer," she said.
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Emphasis added.

Is it? Really?

And surely 'exactly like' would equate to 'identical to'. Which it self-evidently isn't.

Beak: IIRC, the 'baby = no pain' thing wasn't that they can't feel the pain but rather (it is speculated) with no established sense of selfhood over time, and no minute to minute recollection, such short-term experiences will have no long-term effects. IIRC
 
I try to never think too hard about such matters.

Does that make me intellectually dishonest?

They kill yeasties to make the beer, don't they?
 
One of the most horrible sounds I have ever heard in my life in the sound of losters being boiled alive, but it didn't stop me eating them...(how many people here could honestly turn down fresh, free lobster)
I'm told that putting them into the freezer while still alive is the easiest way to kill them.
 
Dan The GPI said:
One of the most horrible sounds I have ever heard in my life in the sound of losters being boiled alive, but it didn't stop me eating them...(how many people here could honestly turn down fresh, free lobster)
I'm told that putting them into the freezer while still alive is the easiest way to kill them.
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isn't the sound air trapped inside their shells escaping rather than anything sinister
 
Abso-bally-lutely. There's air trapped under their shell which, when heated in boiling water, squeezes out of the joints. Lobsters and other crustaceans don't have vocal mechanisms.

If you can't take the lobster in heat, get out of the kitchen.
 
Leaferne:
I believe that was part of the rationale behind not giving baby boys anesthesia for circumcision.
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Ravenstone:
I was told by a chef that it's actually the quickest way to kill them, the alternative being shoving a pin into their brain. And their brain is very difficult to find.
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What terrible images this unintended exchange called up! :_omg:
 
A professional way of killing lobsters is to use the point of a cooks knife (sometimes known as a French knife) at the point on the lobsters head, hammer it down and cut forward. Kills the beggar quick, that does.
 
Stormkhan said:
Abso-bally-lutely. There's air trapped under their shell which, when heated in boiling water, squeezes out of the joints. Lobsters and other crustaceans don't have vocal mechanisms.

If you can't take the lobster in heat, get out of the kitchen.
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If only someone had explained that to me at the time, it's a lot like the sound of a small child screaming. Which still didn't stop me eating them. :twisted:
 
In England you may go to jail dropping a live lobster into boiling water !

The London Evening Standard reports Boris Johnson agrees that mollusks, lobsters, crabs, octopuses, and squid have feelings and can feel pain.

A proposal is to the cause their deaths by electrocution.

You think this is crazy, it is already law in Switzerland and New Zealand.
 
charliebrown said:
In England you may go to jail dropping a live lobster into boiling water !

The London Evening Standard reports Boris Johnson agrees that mollusks, lobsters, crabs, octopuses, and squid have feelings and can feel pain.

A proposal is to the cause their deaths by electrocution.

You think this is crazy, it is already law in Switzerland and New Zealand.
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Not crazy at all to prevent animal cruelty.
 
charliebrown said:
In England you may go to jail dropping a live lobster into boiling water !

The London Evening Standard reports Boris Johnson agrees that mollusks, lobsters, crabs, octopuses, and squid have feelings and can feel pain.

A proposal is to the cause their deaths by electrocution.

You think this is crazy, it is already law in Switzerland and New Zealand.
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I don't think it is crazy. It IS crazy. In fact, batshit crazy. Anthropomorphism at its worst.

charliebrown - what you said.

I recall some idiot claiming plants have feelings. Well, that shoots a big hole in veganism. How many lives will you terminate harvesting a potato crop? And those poor mushrooms. All their extremities pulled off just to gratify human cravings.
 
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charliebrown said:
Frideswide,

To me lobsters are just big bugs.


Would you care how a roach felt when you sprayed it with bug spray ?
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But they're so cute

Tenacitas.jpg
 
Souleater said:
But they're so cute

View attachment 41874
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Actually that looks like excrement with claws and a grin. Possibly the worst thing you could imagine sat on the seat of ease. It even seems to be wriggling about on the toilet seat no doubt in the process of climbing out.
 
charliebrown said:
Frideswide,

To me lobsters are just big bugs.


Would you care how a roach felt when you sprayed it with bug spray ?
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One I am killing because it threatens me, the other I am killing, without need, to eat. So false analogy.

I am weighing a doubt against a certainty.
 
Cochise said:
I don't think it is crazy. It IS crazy. In fact, batshit crazy. Anthropomorphism at its worst.
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I totally disagree. Of course they feel pain, which is what this is about. Anthropomorphism would be about feelings or emotions.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
I totally disagree. Of course they feel pain, which is what this is about. Anthropomorphism would be about feelings or emotions.
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You will, on reflection, notice the complete contradiction in your own statement.

And I totally disagree. And don't care. We should probably leave it there . I'm a carnivore - well an omnivore that eats meat and pretty much anything else . Except tripe. I draw the line at tripe. Black pudding, just fine. Stuffed hearts, weird but delicious.

If we weren't omnivores we wouldn't have both the canines and the molars. If we were vegetarian we'd have more stomachs.
 
Cochise said:
I don't think it is crazy. It IS crazy. In fact, batshit crazy. Anthropomorphism at its worst.

charliebrown - what you said.

I recall some idiot claiming plants have feelings. Well, that shoots a big hole in veganism. How many lives will you terminate harvesting a potato crop? And those poor mushrooms. All their extremities pulled off just to gratify human cravings.
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With respect Cochise, that is a pretty shabby strawman argument.
All animals are sentient and react to pain. I don't kill bugs I find in the house, but trap them and release them and I stopped eating any animals around 40 years ago.
I don't lose any sleep over mowing the lawn though and I doubt that any (sane) vegetarian or vegan does either.

Putting a live animal into boiling water must be excruciatingly painful for the poor creature and is inexcusable.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
With respect Cochise, that is a pretty shabby strawman argument.
All animals are sentient and react to pain. I don't kill bugs I find in the house, but trap them and release them and I stopped eating any animals around 40 years ago.
I don't lose any sleep over mowing the lawn though and I doubt that any (sane) vegetarian or vegan does either.

Putting a live animal into boiling water must be excruciatingly painful for the poor creature and is inexcusable.
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It's not an animal, unless in the broadest sense of animal vegetable mineral. It's a crustacean. And I repeat, I don't care. It's lunch.
 
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