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Dont feel bad for lobsters

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by aeroman10, Feb 14, 2005.

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aeroman10 Member

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Do you feel bad when boiling a lobsters? Hopefully this will make you fell better

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050214/ap_on_sc/lobster_pain

Study: Lobsters Unlikely to Feel Pain
Mon Feb 14,10:04 AM ET Science - AP

By CLARKE CANFIELD, Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Maine - A new study out of Norway concludes that 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 feel excruciating agony when they are cooked, and that dropping one in a pot of boiling water is tantamount to torture.

The study, which was funded by the Norwegian government and written by a scientist at the University of Oslo, suggests that lobsters and other invertebrates 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," the study concluded.

The 39-page report was aimed at determining if invertebrates should be subject to animal welfare legislation as Norway revises its animal welfare law. The report looked at invertebrate groups such as insects, crustaceans, worms and mollusks and summarized the scientific literature dealing with feelings and pain among those creatures without backbones.

It concluded that most invertebrates — including lobsters, crabs, worms, snails, slugs and clams — probably don't have the capacity to feel pain.

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.

The Norwegian report backs up a study in the early 1990s at the University of Maine and 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, Va., has made lobster pain part of its Fish Empathy Project, putting out stickers and pamphlets with slogans like, "Being Boiled Hurts. Let Lobsters Live."

PETA regularly demonstrates at the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, and 10 years ago placed a full-page ad in a Rockland newspaper featuring an open letter from actress Mary Tyler Moore urging festival-goers to forego lobster.

"If we had to drop live pigs or chickens into scalding water, chances are that few of us would eat them. Why should it be any different for lobsters?" the ad read.

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 indeed 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.

But Mike Loughlin, who studied the boiling of lobsters when he was a University of Maine graduate student, said lobsters simply lack the brain capacity to feel pain.

"It's a semantic thing: No brain, no pain," said Loughlin, who now works as a biologist at the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission.

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.

Whether lobsters feel pain or not, 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.

___

On the Net:

Lobster Institute: www.lobsterinstitute.org

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: www.peta.org
Click to expand...

#1 aeroman10, Feb 14, 2005

droxford Member

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I don't care if they experience pain or not

GET IN MY BELLY!

-- droxford

#2 droxford, Feb 14, 2005
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Per Isabel,

lobsters have one up on us.

http://bbs.clutchcity.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91332&perpage=30&pagenumber=4

#3 RIET, Feb 14, 2005
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i rove robster craws

#4 NJRocket, Feb 14, 2005
Fatty FatBastard Member

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Does this mean I can now beat a lobster senseless?

#5 Fatty FatBastard, Feb 14, 2005
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Originally posted by Fatty FatBastard
Does this mean I can now beat a lobster senseless?
Click to expand...

yes! but only in front of a large PETA gathering.

God i HATE PETA.

#6 SWTsig, Feb 14, 2005
Fatty FatBastard Member

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Originally posted by SWTsig
yes! but only in front of a large PETA gathering.

God i HATE PETA.
Click to expand...

I've mentioned this before, but I knew the National Spokesman for PETA quite well in high school.

Oh, the irony!

#7 Fatty FatBastard, Feb 14, 2005

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What if it's an imitation lobster?

#8 PhiSlammaJamma, Feb 14, 2005
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Originally posted by PhiSlammaJamma
What if it's an imitation lobster?
Click to expand...

lol

#9 Samurai Jack, Feb 14, 2005
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Originally posted by PhiSlammaJamma
What if it's an imitation lobster?
Click to expand...

If it's imitation, you have to add a "K" to it, like Krab meat, so..

Klobster

#10 Fatty FatBastard, Feb 14, 2005
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You Killers!

#11 LegendZ3, Feb 14, 2005
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There's plenty of lobsters in the ocean for everyone.

#12 TheFreak, Feb 14, 2005
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fk you all who claim lobsters do not feel 'pain'.

it is not about PAIN, it is about the damn respect of LIFE!

who the hell gives us the right to take life away cruely just to satisfy our stomach?

#13 forebay, Feb 14, 2005

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Evolution.

If they didn't want to be eaten - they should've evolved to taste bad - or look cute in pictures, like baby seals.

Seriously, tasting delicious to your main predator is an evolutionary death-trap.

#14 Puedlfor, Feb 14, 2005
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Originally posted by forebay
fk you all who claim lobsters do not feel 'pain'.

it is not about PAIN, it is about the damn respect of LIFE!

who the hell gives us the right to take life away cruely just to satisfy our stomach?
Click to expand...

life.

#15 MR. MEOWGI, Feb 14, 2005
arkoe (ง'̀-'́)ง

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Originally posted by Fatty FatBastard
I've mentioned this before, but I knew the National Spokesman for PETA quite well in high school.

Oh, the irony!
Click to expand...

Let's go have a campout on his lawn and boil lobsters on portable stoves. If PETA has the right to protest, so do I.

#16 arkoe, Feb 14, 2005
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"Feelings" is one thing, but not experiencing PAIN?

Isn't pain just such a fundamental thing that you would think it's a stumlus that the thrashing lobster is trying to escape from?

On some fundamental level, even with a pea brain, the lobster has to "sense" that the boiling water is killing it. If not, then WTF even try to escape?

#17 Rocket G, Feb 14, 2005
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Nobody seems to complain when predatory animals maul other animals and eat them. There are animals that start to eat other animals while they are still alive, that's pretty damn cruel, but it's the reality of our world.

#18 Oski2005, Feb 14, 2005

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Originally posted by forebay
fk you all who claim lobsters do not feel 'pain'.

it is not about PAIN, it is about the damn respect of LIFE!

who the hell gives us the right to take life away cruely just to satisfy our stomach?
Click to expand...

This is sarcasm, right?

#19 Fatty FatBastard, Feb 14, 2005
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Originally posted by Rocket G
"Feelings" is one thing, but not experiencing PAIN?

Isn't pain just such a fundamental thing that you would think it's a stumlus that the thrashing lobster is trying to escape from?

On some fundamental level, even with a pea brain, the lobster has to "sense" that the boiling water is killing it. If not, then WTF even try to escape?
Click to expand...

Please see my original post (above).

-- droxford

#20 droxford, Feb 14, 2005

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