The cruelty of boiling lobsters alive!

Discodog

No

g'em wrote: »

Out of curiosity does the Act distinguish between higher/lower animals or are all animals equal under it?

The wording is as follows:

"1.-(1) If any person –
(a) shall cruelly beat, kick, ill-treat, over-ride, over-drive, over-load, tortue, infuriate or terrify any animal, or shall cause or procure, or, being the owner, permit any animal to be so used, or shall, by wantonly or unreasonably doing or omitting to do any act, or causing or procuring the commission or omission of any act, cause any unnecessary suffering, or, being the owner, permit any unnecessary suffering to be so caused to any animal"

(a)the expression “animal” means any domestic or captive animal;


(b)the expression “domestic animal” means any horse, ass, mule, bull, sheep, pig, goat, dog, cat, or fowl, or any other animal of whatsoever kind or species, and whether a quadruped or not which is tame or which has been or is being sufficiently tamed to serve some purpose for the use of man;


(c)the expression “captive animal” means any animal (not being a domestic animal) of whatsoever kind or species, and whether a quadruped or not, including any bird, fish, or reptile, which is in captivity, or confinement, or which is maimed, pinioned, or subjected to any appliance or contrivance for the purpose of hindering or preventing its escape from captivity or confinement;

g'em

The Sweeper wrote: »

I believe lobsters feel pain. I think that if you trust in the theory of evolution, you need to accept that anything that's currently alive developed the capacity over millions of years to feel pain and to learn from experience. The level of sentience notwithstanding, a claim that an animal doesn't feel pain is, to me, unrealistic. The ability to very simply translate sensation into one of two camps, good or bad, is at the core of the evolutionary process of every living creature.

In order to feel pain something has to have the brain in order to be able to interpret that 'feeling'. You can feel good vs bad without interpreting that 'bad' as pain. Lower animals will respond to a threatening stimulus in such a way that it helps them avoid danger but they don't feel pain from it.

Odysseus wrote: »

@ G'em this question of jumping out of the pot, could it be nerves. Like what you may see when you kill game. I see rabbits jump all over the place after a perfect head-shot. With the ammo I would be using and the damage done to the rabbits brain their is no way the animal could be consider to be still alive; yet I have seen some do a lot of nervous jumping.

Animals (and humans) frequently display reflex responses after death - it's quite normal but the first few times you see it it can be quite disconcerting. They are clinically dead though and not feeling any pain. The lobster jumping out of the pot is a reflex too, but I imagine that's more likely to be premortem as the boiling may not kill instantaneously.

@Discodog - cheers, that's very woolly where lower animals are concerned. Technically speaking anything from sponges upwards is an 'animal' (although we could have a lengthy discussion about the taxonomy of Parazoans). If you kill a nematode in your garden are you therefore guilty of animal cruelty under that Act?

Personally - and this is really only a personal belief - I'm inclined to think that only vertebrates are able to feel 'pain' in the same way that we would perceive it. Anything without a spinal chord may feel distress but it's a reflex response and not a subjective feeling per se.

Discodog

No

g'em wrote: »

Anything without a spinal chord may feel distress but it's a reflex response and not a subjective feeling per se.

But distress is just as unacceptable as pain. One could argue that it is psychological pain. Surely it "boils" down to not causing distress if there is an alternative.

g'em

It's only psychological if you have a brain which invertebrates don't have

Discodog

No

g'em wrote: »

It's only psychological if you have a brain which invertebrates don't have

You know that even that is debatable depending on how you define brain. The central nervous system of invertebrates may be different but they can show a huge degree of sophistication.

The sad thing is that we legislate & then try to find reasons to exclude certain animals. For example we designate some as vermin & use that as an excuse to exercise cruelty.

People should not need law to know that causing unnecessary, severe, discomfort, distress & pain to any animal is wrong.

g'em

Discodog wrote: »

You know that even that is debatable depending on how you define brain.

Yeah, sorry, that was very woolly on my part. It's wrong of me to say that invertebrates don't have brains, they do (sort of), but I don't believe those brains are capable of cognition and learning, I don't believe that they have an ability to 'feel' anything on a psychological level.

Discodog wrote:

The central nervous system of invertebrates may be different but they can show a huge degree of sophistication.

Absolutely not arguing with you there - but again an orgnaism can be sophisticated and very complex but that doesn't inherently imply any level of intelligence.

Cookie_Monster

Ddad wrote: »

I kill my lobster before boiling them. I don't see the point in not killing them.

how? just as a matter of interest.

EDIT: I assume as per MadSL link

Galway K9

No

of course they feel pain...they scream when their put in the boiling hot water.

The Sweeper

MadsL wrote: »

Totally baffled as to the live boiling need, or stupid expensive electric machines.

Here.

http://www.cooking-lobster.com/cooking-lobster/lobster-killing.html

Job done.

If I die as quickly and efficiently as that I'll be happy enough.

If you don't like the thought of killing lobsters, don't eat them. More for me.

If you read the RSPCA link I posted you'll see that no, that's not job done. Lobsters don't have one brain, and there's a second nervous centre where the tail meets the body. So your link demonstrates how to maim and decapitate a lobster before boiling it alive.

MadsL

maim and decapitate

Bit strong... but as they will be cut in half eventually, no harm in "making sure".

I'd best not tell you how I like my sushi prawns I'd guess...

The Sweeper

Still kickin? /makes gack noises

I watched Iron Chef a while back and it showed the chefs preparing crayfish - take live crayfish, and do something that involves breaking open the end of the tail piece and pulling out the central nervous ganglion string, or 'backbone' or whatever you want to call it. Apparently that can be unpleasant to eat, so they tear it out and then cook the crayfish.

I have to admit I was pretty horrified at watching crayfish, disembowelled, still scratching and stumbling about in the sink they were dropped in after the procedure, and before being cooked.

Someone on here linked to a video recently on how to prepare crab for cooking, which included cutting its face off with a scissors.

I mean, seriously???? There's embracing the apex-predator-highest-on-the-foodchain mentality, and eating what we're arguably evolved to eat, and then again there's just barbarism...

Norwayviking

Worztron wrote: »

I have always been appalled at the way lobsters are cooked. It is an incredibly cruel death. Those that eat the lobster say it feels no pain, which I believe is utter nonsense.

Who cares as long as they taste good.:D

SophieSakura

No

Are prawns and crabs and other animals boiled alive too?

I think whether or not they feel pain, they must be able to feel some kind of negative feeling/distress so I don't like it . . . even before they're killed they must be stressed and scared.

I'd say the same thing about other animals before they're slaughtered too. So I'm not sure if boiling alive is any worse or not . . . it seems worse.

BunShopVoyeur

Galway K9 wrote: »

of course they feel pain...they scream when their put in the boiling hot water.

That's a myth. How do you scream without vocal chords?

Alun

BunShopVoyeur wrote: »

That's a myth. How do you scream without vocal chords?

It's probably just air escaping from within the shell as they're plunged into the hot water.

BunShopVoyeur

Alun wrote: »

It's probably just air escaping from within the shell as they're plunged into the hot water.

Absolutely.

Bullseye1

On watching Australia's Top Chef I think the new technique for cooking them is to first put them in a feezer before cooking.

Norwayviking

Bullseye1 wrote: »

On watching Australia's Top Chef I think the new technique for cooking them is to first put them in a feezer before cooking.

Thats right,but it have to be alive when you freeze it,for it to last longer.:D

Ken.

Seen a thing on tv not so long ago that said in America lobsters are classed as insects to get around the various cruelty to animals acts.