Study: Unlikely lobsters feel pain in boiling water
It’s a semantic thing: No brain, no pain.
- Mike Loughlin
We’ve maintained all along that the lobster doesn’t have the ability to process pain.
- Bob Bayer
I can still remember an old Saturday Night Live gag, in which (I think) Dan Akroyd asked viewers to call in and vote on whether they should set “Larry the Lobster” free or boil the poor, helpless crustacean. If memory serves, Larry lost and ended up being served with lemon and drawn butter. Yum….
I’ve always wondered, though; being dropped into boiling water has GOT to hurt, right? It’s got to be a pretty horrible way to meet your maker…or become someone’s entree. Well, as it turns out, it might not be painful at all for Larry’s descendents.
I generally support the goals of PETA, if not always their methods. In this case, I’ve got to wonder if this is a battle worth fighting. If this study is accurate, is anthropomorphizing the boiling of a crustacean really the best way to make your point?
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.
PETA’s argument against cruelty to animals is predicated on the premise that cruelty equals suffering, and suffering equals pain. If an organism cannot feel pain, is there even suffering…and by extension, cruelty?
I’m all for preventing cruelty. The way KFC’s suppliers treat their chickens, for example, is textbook cruelty. We as humans have an implied responsibility to prevent suffering and cruelty wherever and whenever possible. I also think that we have a responsibility to be reasonable and fight the battles that actually make sense. If a lobster is not capable of feeling pain, is there a battle to fight? I’m not saying that I have the answer to that question, but I do have to wonder.
Of course, PETA will argue that lobsters can and do feel pain. This is not a controversy that one study will easily put to rest. Both sides have a stake in proving their science, though the lobster industry is the only one I’ve seen put forward a study conducted scientifically. In the meantime, I don’t know about you, but all of this talk of lobsters is making me hungry….
