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In addition to having the physical adaptations necessary to feel pain, lobsters also act as if they feel pain (and pleasure). Whether they’re migrating hundreds of miles to follow the ocean temperatures that they like best or hiding from the bright lights in the supermarket, it’s clear that lobsters have likes and dislikes, as do all animals. That lobsters seek out things that are pleasant and avoid things that are painful shows that they can clearly feel the difference between the two.
When lobsters in grocery store tanks cower in the darkest corner and scramble to escape, they are behaving just as we would in a similar situation. Upon seeing many lobsters crammed together in a large holding tank, Wallace writes that “it is difficult not to sense that they’re unhappy, or frightened …”
When they’re dropped into scalding-hot water, lobsters whip their bodies wildly and scrape the sides of the pot in a desperate attempt to escape. Wallace writes, “Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off. Or the creature’s claws scraping the sides of the kettle as it thrashes around. The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming). A blunter way to say this is that the lobster acts as if it’s in terrible pain …”
Lobsters have brain structures that are designed to feel pain, and they clearly act as if they feel pain, pleasure, and fear. Given these facts, the truth becomes clear: Lobsters, like all animals, feel pain, and they deserve to be treated humanely.
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