Scientists say lobsters feel no pain

[pam claughton]

People seem to have such concern for whether a lobster feels pain when plunged into water. Why is that? I suppose maybe it's about the same as a deer feels when it's shot, or a cow when it's slaughtered.

[ghostrider]

Lobsters eat their young.

Maybe we're simply fulfilling our small roles in the great karmic wheel when we boil the adults.

[johnnyd]

As a former diver in Maine waters, I can report that lobsters are known among the underwater cognoscenti as "the cockroaches of the briny deep". They eat anything, they exhibit no remorse in the heat of battle, they think nothing of sacrificing a limb and don't seem to even notice when a claw dislocates. They are not very bright.

In summer when they run into shore to shed you see them in swarms, thus the nickname "bugs". Lobstermen string traps along narrow canyons to collect them as they swim through and a few invariably get tempted by bait bags of mackeral or leather strips (see? not that bright).

Once I witnessed a swarm proceeding through a shallow channel, right over a trap-string. There must have been dozens flapping their tail (thus facing backwards) all going in one direction. I managed to count one lobster in the string of four pots. "How inefficient," I thought to myself, "All those lobsters and only one dumb enough to take the bait." That explains why the fishery does so well since traps are the only allowable way by law to harvest lobsters.

Another time, we heard Mary Tyler Moore or somebody "rescued" a giant lobster in Texas and brought it all the way to Kennebunkport and released it on the rocks by the river entrance. We happened to be diving around there the next day and found this monster. One of the divers cut into the carapace trying to get it into his net-bag, and when we hoisted it on deck, we didn't hear anything... not a single peep, in spite of the gaping hole right behind the eyes. That beast must have been 75 years old. We threw it back and every so often, ran into it off the point where we were collecting sea urchins. It really looked like it didn't give a shit about anything.

Edited February 11, 2005 by johnnyd (log)

[Bux]

I've met 75 year old men from Maine that give the same impression.

[TPO]

As a former diver in Maine waters, I can report that lobsters are known among the underwater cognoscenti as "the cockroaches of the briny deep".  They eat anything, they exhibit no remorse in the heat of battle, they think nothing of sacrificing a limb and don't seem to even notice when a claw dislocates.  They are not very bright.

In summer when they run into shore to shed you see them in swarms, thus the nickname "bugs".  Lobstermen string traps along narrow canyons to collect them as they swim through and a few invariably get tempted by bait bags of mackeral or leather strips (see? not that bright). 

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Alton Brown also called them bugs:

A lobster brain's more like a grasshopper but then we really do have to use the term "brain" very, very loosely. The point is a lobster is a bug. And if you can stomp a roach or smush a spider just for crossing your path, you shouldn't get too teary eyed about sending a lobster to sleep with the fishes, especially if you're going to eat it.

He does, however, still recommend a knife behind the eyes or chilling them in the freezer for 10 minutes before cooking.

Living in Maine has many benefits, but one of the best is being able to call the fish market to tell them what time you will pick up your lobsters -- freshly cooked and piping hot.

[Alex]

This study weighs in on the no-pain side.

[laniloa]

Lobsters are often called bugs because they are arthropods and, therefore, close relatives to what we more commonly think of as bugs. Go into any marine invertebrate lab and they are likely to lump lobsters, shrimp, and the like in the general category of bugs.

[slkinsey]

This study weighs in on the no-pain side.

This is actually a different article about the same study referenced in the first post, but with some interesting additional information:

Animal activists have claimed for years that lobsters feel excruciating agony when they are cooked, and that dropping one in a pot of boiling water is tantamount to torture.

But the study . . . suggests that lobsters and other invertebrates probably don't suffer -- even if lobsters do tend to thrash in boiling water.

The report was aimed at determining if invertebrates such as insects, crustaceans, worms and mollusks should be subject to animal welfare legislation as Norway revises its animal welfare law. It summarized the scientific literature dealing with feelings and pain among those creatures without backbones.

The study concluded that most invertebrates -- including lobsters, crabs, worms, snails, slugs and clams -- probably don't have the capacity to feel pain.

Kind of takes the wind out of PETA's practice of demonstrating at the Maine Lobster Festival and giving out stickers saying: "Being Boiled Hurts. Let Lobsters Live."