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Lobsters are so alien to humans, it’s hard for us to imagine how they perceive the world. For example, lobsters “smell” chemicals in the water with their antennae, and they “taste” with sensory hairs along their legs.
But in many ways, lobsters really aren’t so different from us.
• Like humans, lobsters have a long childhood and an awkward adolescence.
• Lobsters carry their young for nine months and can live to be over 100 years old.
• Like dolphins and many other animals, lobsters use complicated signals to explore their surroundings and establish social relationships.
• Lobsters also take long-distance seasonal journeys and can cover 100 miles or more each year (the equivalent of a human walking from Maine to Florida) — assuming that they manage to avoid the millions of traps set along the coasts. Sadly, many lobsters don’t survive their most formidable predator—humans—and more than 20 million are consumed each year in the United States alone.
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“As an invertebrate zoologist who has studied crustaceans for a number of years, I can tell you the lobster has a rather sophisticated nervous system that, among other things, allows it to sense actions that will cause it harm. … [Lobsters] can, I am sure, sense pain.”
—Jaren G. Horsley, Ph.D.
Contrary to claims made by seafood sellers, there is little doubt anymore that lobsters, like all animals, can feel pain. Most scientists agree that a lobster’s nervous system is quite sophisticated. For example, neurobiologist Tom Abrams says lobsters have “a full array of senses.” Jelle Atema, a marine biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and one of the country’s leading experts on lobsters, says, “I personally believe they do feel pain.”
Lobsters may even feel more pain than we would in similar situations. One popular food magazine recently suggested cutting live lobsters in half before tossing them on the grill (a recipe that’s “not for the squeamish,” the magazine warned), and more than one chef has been known to slice and dice lobsters before cooking them. But, says invertebrate zoologist Jaren G. Horsley, “The lobster does not have an autonomic nervous system that puts it into a state of shock when it is harmed. It probably feels itself being cut. ... I think the lobster is in a great deal of pain from being cut open ... [and] feels all the pain until its nervous system is destroyed” during cooking.
Don’t heat up the water just yet, though. Anyone who has ever boiled a lobster alive can attest to the fact that when dropped into scalding water, lobsters whip their bodies wildly and scrape the sides of the pot in a desperate attempt to escape. In the journal Science, researcher Gordon Gunter described this method of killing lobsters as “unnecessary torture.”
In fact, PETA has consulted with many marine biologists about the most humane way to kill a lobster. While the experts couldn’t seem to agree on which method is best, they do agree that there really is no humane way to kill these sensitive and unusual animals.
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“Lobsters are remarkable, sophisticated creatures.”
—Marine biologist Jelle Atema |
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