What Most People Don’t See About Their "Seafood"
By Tracey Laszloffy, Best Friends VolunteerThe first major conflict I and my partner had was when we were going to fly from Connecticut to Virginia to visit his brother’s family. My partner wanted to transport 4 live lobsters with us for his six-year-old niece because it was her favorite food. I admit it’s unusual for a six-year-old to prefer lobster over hamburgers or grilled cheese. Nevertheless the endearing part of this was lost on me. I was too distraught about the thought of these lobsters being stuffed into Styrofoam containers and subjected to a frightful journey via cars and planes, only to meet their ultimate fate in a pot of scalding hot water.
I realized that my partner and I are two separate people with different views, and I could not control his behavior any more than he could control mine. But it didn't change my misery about the choice he was making and the consequences I knew it would have for those four lobsters. As my misery grew so did his irritation until we had an all out argument, our first ever. He thought it was absurd that we were arguing about lobsters. “It’s not like we were talking about a dog or a cow,” he retorted. And herein lies much of what people don’t see about the "seafood" they eat.
Most human beings cannot fathom that lobsters are sentient beings who learn, have memory, can make generalizations, and yes, feel pain. Because they look so alien to us, we mistakenly assume they lack the qualities that would demand being treated as something more than an “inanimate object.” Our difficulty in seeing lobsters accurately is a function of our deficit, not theirs, and yet it is they who pay the price for our limited perceptual capabilities.
Some Facts About LobstersLobsters are capable of cognitive operations that most humans simply do not see or grasp. They can learn to associate certain chemical signals with punishments and others with rewards. They make distinctions in their environment. They display memory in the way they explore new environments while showing little interest in ones they’ve previously explored. They can remember and recognize individual lobsters whom they’ve fought with in the past.
Measurements of brain activity show that lobsters' brains respond differently to interesting objects than to irrelevant objects. Their brains also show that lobsters experience expectation, which is considered a sign of higher mental processing associated with conscious experiences. They also can make generalizations such as associating an individual odor with a mixture that contains it. This may reflect a higher-order processing capability known as “configural discrimination,” which is ability to discern that a combination is not the same thing as the sum of its parts.
Zoologists have demonstrated in no uncertain terms that lobsters (and other fish and shellfish) feel pain. The ideal body temperature for lobsters is between 38 and 42 degrees Fahrenheit. Their entire bodies are covered with chemoreceptors, which make lobsters very sensitive to their environments. When packed on ice, lobsters sometimes drop a claw to conserve body heat. When boiled alive, they will desperately scratch at the sides of the pot in a futile effort to escape.
Opioids are chemicals found in mammals that mediate pain. The nervous systems of lobsters and crabs produce opioids and opioid receptors. Both lobsters and crabs, when struck with an electric shock exhibit a defensive response. When they receive a morphine dose, their defensive response is lowered in relationship to the level of morphine dosing. Given that lobsters possess pain-mediating chemicals and receptors, and that they respond to painkillers just as other animals do, it is unreasonable to suggest that they do not feel pain.
What We Do To LobstersIn the wild, lobsters carry their young for nine months before giving birth. They can live to be a hundred years old. And they form stable social hierarchies. Every year lobsters embark on seasonal migrations traveling up to a 1,000 miles. Sadly however, if a lobster is caught in one of the countless traps that fisherman set out, they will encounter extreme adversity and suffering. Left in unattended traps, some lobsters die of starvation, dehydration, heat, or fights with other lobsters. These are the lucky ones.
Lobsters who stay alive in traps face transportation and storage, where they may become dehydrated or develop diseases such as red-tail bacterial disease, shell disease, and “bumper car” disease, which arises from extremely crowded conditions. They also suffer from an inability to breathe properly in air, which results in acidosis and toxin buildup. By the time lobsters arrive at factories and packing stations, many are so weak and injured that they are considered unfit for live export. Those unlucky souls who do go on to be shipped to retailers for consumption end up in crowded holding tanks awaiting a barbaric death.
Most often lobsters are boiled to death. Even people who have little concern for lobsters will admit that lobsters seem to squirm and resist as they are lowered toward the boiling water, only to whip their bodies and scrape against the sides of the pot. Sometimes fully conscious lobsters are split down the middle of their backs while butter is poured into their open wound, and they are baked alive.
According to invertebrate zoologist Jaren G. Horsley, because lobsters do not have an autonomic nervous system, they do not go into a state of shock when assaulted by extreme pain. As a result lobsters must feel severe pain as they are cut, baked, broiled, and boiled until such time as their entire nervous system is destroyed. It usually takes 3-7 minutes before this destruction occurs completely. So to put that in perspective, try putting your hand under a stream of boiling hot tap water and imagine holding it there for 3-7 minutes.
The sad reality is that there are no humane ways of killing lobsters. And the way we treat them, from the moment they are caught until the moment of their deaths, is unbelievably cruel and agonizing -- even if the limitations in our perceptional capabilities make it hard for us to see this.
What Can You DoBack to the tense conflict my partner and I had about those four lobsters. Our argument finally became deadlocked when he said to me, “If I don’t do this, nothing will be different for these lobsters. Someone else will buy and boil them, so what will all of this change in the end?” He had a point there. We could choose to not participate in this cruelty, but the doom of those four lobsters was pretty much sealed. But for me, it was a matter of principle. I could not stop someone else from abusing these lobsters, but I did not have to use that as a justification for participating in their torture. And if a group of critically thinking people takes this stand, that’s the force that makes all social change possible.
In that spirit please consider these steps:1. If you consume lobsters and other marine life, the most powerful start you can make is to stop eating them. Never underestimate the difference that a single person can make. Every person who makes the commitment to cease participating in torturing and consuming lobsters is a critical step toward reaching the critical mass of objecting consumers who will alter this industry.
2. Educate others about the facts. Gently, and without accusation, dispel misconceptions about lobsters. Help others to see the truth about the marine life they regard as their "seafood." The more people you share the facts with, the more people may decide to abstain from this cruel practice.
3. Read David Wallace's article that appeared in
Gourmet Magazine about this subject,
"Consider the Lobster."3. It is critically important to contact your local grocers and share your objections to the sale of lobsters. Politely and firmly let them know it is cruel to confine animals to a tiny tank (where many are never fed to reduce waste from elimination) only to boil them alive. If the tank is crowded or dirty, or if there are dead lobsters in the tank, file a written complaint with your local health department.
Here is a sample letter you can use that is suggested by PETA.
4. If you or someone you know is given live lobsters as a gift, consider liberating these individuals. Here are important
Tips for Releasing a Lobster.
Photo courtesy of © Ghubonamin | Dreamstime.com
Posted by Tracey Laszloffy, Best Friends Volunteer