Lobsters are usually captured by commercial fishers in traps in shallow coastal waters. Most lobsters are caught during the summer when they are out looking for food—they spend the winter in their burrows farther out at sea. Being torn from their underwater homes and transported over long distances is very stressful for these sensitive and solitary animals, and for many of the lobsters, it’s only the beginning of the long imprisonment leading up to their death.

After they are captured, lobsters may be transported to warehouses where they will be packed in ice while they are still alive and left for months. Lobsters are also transported to stores to be kept alive in tanks, where they may languish for weeks before someone buys them so that they can be taken home and killed. Since they are territorial, nocturnal animals who spend most of their time alone or hidden in their burrows, lobsters suffer greatly when they are packed together in filthy holding containers in warehouses or grocery stores.

Lobsters imprisoned in store tanks are under constant stress because of the exposure to bright light, lack of hiding places in their tanks, extreme crowding, and people tapping on or bumping into the glass. Most captive lobsters are never fed because store owners don’t want to spend the money to install filter pumps that would filter lobsters’ waste out of the water, so they slowly starve in the stark tanks. When they are finally purchased, lobsters endure being carelessly handled and jostled on the way to their final destination, and they are boiled or chopped up while they’re still conscious.

One of the most common ways to kill lobsters is by dropping them into pots of boiling water. In the journal Science, researcher Gordon Gunter described this method of killing lobsters as “unnecessary torture,” and Australia’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says that boiling these sensitive animals is an “unacceptable method” of killing them because it is so horribly painful. The government of New Zealand also recognizes that lobsters feel pain and included them in its humane slaughter legislation, which protects animals from painful methods of killing.

In addition to boiling lobsters while they’re still conscious, there are many other ways that people torture these animals before killing them—chefs have been known to chop up live lobsters before cooking them, and others put these animals in the microwave to kill them. In some restaurants, lobsters are chopped open and served while still conscious and struggling—this cruelty is called “live sushi.” If cats, dogs, pigs, or cows were treated in this way, restaurant owners could be jailed on felony cruelty-to-animals charges.

We still have a lot to learn about lobsters and other crustaceans, but the information that we do know points to the fact that they feel pain and fear. Lobsters, like all animals, deserve to be treated with kindness. Please keep lobsters off your plate and encourage your friends and family to do the same. Order a free vegetarian starter kit and free DVD to learn more about animals killed for food, and take advantage of our delicious fish-free recipes.

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