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Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:01 AM

Dial H For Hero (2,971 posts)

UK weighs ban on boiling live lobsters

https://thehill.com/policy/international/561881-uk-weighs-ban-on-boiling-lobster

The United Kingdom is weighing a ban on boiling live lobsters, crabs and other crustaceans amid a push from animal welfare activists to include the invertebrates in legislation that would recognize them as sentient beings.

Legislation currently being weighed in the House of Lords would not only seriously boost animal welfare protections but also require the government to consider animals' feelings when writing regulations.

Though the legislation currently only includes vertebrates, lawmakers are weighing expanding it to include invertebrates such as lobsters, as well as octopuses and mussels, according to The Times.

The legislation comes as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it has commissioned a study to examine the creature’s sentience.

(excerpt)

Describing a lobster (let alone a mussel) as sentient and having feelings seems a bit of a stretch.

22 replies, 1424 views

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22 replies	Author	Time	Post
UK weighs ban on boiling live lobsters (Original post)	Dial H For Hero	Jul 2021	OP
Why do they try desperately to escape the pot then?	Treefrog	Jul 2021	#1
+1	2naSalit	Jul 2021	#2
Presumably because lobsters which try to get away from something which damages them are more likely	Dial H For Hero	Jul 2021	#4
Reflexes don't require the ability to feel pain, or even a brain. nt.	Mariana	Jul 2021	#10
I should think it's chauvinistic to discriminate for or against vertebrates.	CoopersDad	Jul 2021	#3
I love that movie and I approve the proposed changes in GB to include invertebrates for protection.	MoonRiver	Jul 2021	#13
From Google index	Submariner	Jul 2021	#5
Ah yes, Mary Tyler Moore comes to mind.	Croney	Jul 2021	#6
I have no conclusive evidence that other human beings feel pain as I do	sanatanadharma	Jul 2021	#7
All life is sentient? Clams? Fleas? Bacteria? Radishes? Surely you draw the line somewhere.	Dial H For Hero	Jul 2021	#14
I do draw lines and color outside of the margins	sanatanadharma	Jul 2021	#16
Certainly there is a line somewhere but,	Disaffected	Jul 2021	#17
Until very recently -	Ms. Toad	Jul 2021	#15
Yes, another good example of	Disaffected	Jul 2021	#18
Many crustaceans have	sarisataka	Jul 2021	#8
I'm with you on octopuses	wryter2000	Jul 2021	#21
I love lobsters...	NurseJackie	Jul 2021	#9
They are probably better when steamed anyway...	Klaralven	Jul 2021	#19
If lobsters looked like puppies, we wouldn't allow it	Clash City Rocker	Jul 2021	#11
How does one stun mussels or clams?	dhol82	Jul 2021	#12
How would they like for them to be killed?	wryter2000	Jul 2021	#20
So what now? Lethal injection?	48656c6c6f20	Jul 2021	#22

Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:03 AM

Treefrog (4,170 posts)

1. Why do they try desperately to escape the pot then?

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Response to Treefrog (Reply #1)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:05 AM

2naSalit (73,433 posts)

2. +1

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Response to Treefrog (Reply #1)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:08 AM

Dial H For Hero (2,971 posts)

4. Presumably because lobsters which try to get away from something which damages them are more likely

to survive and reproduce, thus such behavior is "hardwired" into them.

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Response to Treefrog (Reply #1)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:35 AM

Mariana (14,576 posts)

10. Reflexes don't require the ability to feel pain, or even a brain. nt.

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:06 AM

CoopersDad (2,057 posts)

3. I should think it's chauvinistic to discriminate for or against vertebrates.

How very thick of us.
We are vertebrates, therefore other invertebrates are better than invertbrates, seems to be the logic here.
To the legislators, stop what you're doing and go to your respective libraries and give this a think.

Compare an Octopus to Ted Cruz, and then get back to me.

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Response to CoopersDad (Reply #3)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:51 AM

MoonRiver (36,926 posts)

13. I love that movie and I approve the proposed changes in GB to include invertebrates for protection.

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:08 AM

Submariner (12,247 posts)

5. From Google index

Lobsters lack the brain anatomy needed to feel pain, said Ayers, who builds robots modeled on lobster and sea-lamprey neurobiology. Lobsters and other crustaceans are often swallowed whole by predators, he added, so they never needed to evolve the ability to detect pain from, say, warming water or an electric shock.

A new animal protection law in Switzerland requires that lobsters be stunned before being cooked. Animal rights activists and some scientists argue that lobsters' central nervous systems are complex enough that they can feel pain. There is no conclusive evidence about whether lobsters can feel pain.

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:20 AM

Croney (4,148 posts)

6. Ah yes, Mary Tyler Moore comes to mind.

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/31/us/new-animal-rights-cause-urges-free-the-lobsters.html

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:33 AM

sanatanadharma (3,006 posts)

7. I have no conclusive evidence that other human beings feel pain as I do

Why shouldn't I think that humans are just hard-wired to pull a hand back from the fire.

After all, plenty of materialist, scientist minded people seem to deny that consciousness (the knower of pain) is any more than an epiphenomena of electro-chemical activity in the body-mind-sense-complex that we call "I" or me.

If consciousness is only an add-on to the fundamentally real and thus dispensable, there is no difference between lobster and man except the complexity of their feelings, fantasies and dreams.

All life is sentient, in my opinion-understanding. All life forms are aware of their environment and I doubt that only higher life forms seek to avoid discomfort and pain due to feelings rather than programming.

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Response to sanatanadharma (Reply #7)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:59 AM

Dial H For Hero (2,971 posts)

14. All life is sentient? Clams? Fleas? Bacteria? Radishes? Surely you draw the line somewhere.

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Reply #14)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 11:20 AM

sanatanadharma (3,006 posts)

16. I do draw lines and color outside of the margins

I am a vegetarian, so I do differentiate between rabbits and carrots, I eat the one that doesn't run.
To be consistent, I'd have to avoid the lobster and eat the life of the mussel.
Yet, though mussels can't flee, they do hide.

I won't swat a mosquito but accept my wife's killing of cockroaches.
All life is sentient, but not all life-forms have the means to express (make obvious) that inner awareness.
Science reveals that plants, non-moving, locked to one place do 'pull-back from' negative stimulus.
Radishes are silent, but trees rustle in the wind.

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Reply #14)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 11:22 AM

Disaffected (3,576 posts)

17. Certainly there is a line somewhere but,

we simply don't know where it is. The assumption that lobsters are not sentient to any degree is only that - an assumption. And, when you get right down to it, there is not even a conclusive way of knowing that anyone, either than yourself, is actually sentient. We just do not know enough about the functioning of nervous systems to tell.

When, if ever, we come up with an explanation of exactly how a nervous system causes sentience, we will be in a better position to know.

BTW, in the 19th century IIRC there was a theory going around in certain European laboratories that animals such as dogs used in experiments were not sentient and therefore could not experience pain. So, they were strapped down and operated on without anesthesia along with other horrific experimental procedures.

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Response to sanatanadharma (Reply #7)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 11:12 AM

Ms. Toad (31,788 posts)

15. Until very recently -

circumcisons were done without any kind of pain control on the basis that infants were not well enough developed to feel pain.

Newborns do feel pain.

Parents don't have to be told that, and many pediatricians don't either. But the contrary belief - that the smallest babies are such primitive organisms that they are oblivious to pain - has persisted for decades among many physicians who have routinely operated on these children with little or no anesthesia.

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/24/science/infants-sense-of-pain-is-recognized-finally.html

When I was pregnant in 1987, and deciding about circumcision if I had a male child, the idea that infants don't feel pain was still as common as not.

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Response to Ms. Toad (Reply #15)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 11:23 AM

Disaffected (3,576 posts)

18. Yes, another good example of

human hubris.

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:33 AM

sarisataka (15,883 posts)

8. Many crustaceans have

The approximate sentience of a rock. Still I do have some issues with cooking live animals.

An octopus OTH is an extremely intelligent creature

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Response to sarisataka (Reply #8)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 01:19 PM

wryter2000 (45,247 posts)

21. I'm with you on octopuses

They are amazing.

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:34 AM

NurseJackie (42,862 posts)

9. I love lobsters...

... with melted butter. So tasty.

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Response to NurseJackie (Reply #9)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 01:14 PM

Klaralven (7,510 posts)

19. They are probably better when steamed anyway...

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:41 AM

Clash City Rocker (3,021 posts)

11. If lobsters looked like puppies, we wouldn't allow it

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 10:46 AM

dhol82 (9,309 posts)

12. How does one stun mussels or clams?

Let them die of hypoxia first?

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 01:18 PM

wryter2000 (45,247 posts)

20. How would they like for them to be killed?

Unless they plan to ban eating lobsters, someone is going to have to kill them.

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Response to Dial H For Hero (Original post)

Thu Jul 8, 2021, 03:07 PM

48656c6c6f20 (7,638 posts)

22. So what now? Lethal injection?

Firing squad?

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