Norwegian Study Finds that Lobsters Don't Feel Pain While Being Cooked!

People cook lobsters by throwing them into a pot of boiling salt water, while they are alive. A Norwegian study found that the lobsters are not likely to feel pain while being cooked. I disagree. I believe that every living thing will be born with a desire to continue to live. I also believe that all living things are equipped with some sort of pain mechanism to help them maintain integrity of their bodies.

It is impossible for us to conclude that certain living things don't feel pain, unless we are them! I don't even buy the argument that plants don't feel pain because they do not have a central nervous system. I am not saying that eating animals is wrong. I am OK with the argument that "I didn't get to the top of the food chain to become a vegetarian". I also think that it is OK to eat the cutest little thing we can find, as long as it is executed humanely; pain is pain for cute things and ugly beasts alike!

Peter Fraser, a marine biologist at the University of Aberdeen, says crabs and lobsters have only about 100,000 neurons, compared with 100bn in people and other vertebrates. While this allows them to react to threatening stimuli, he said there is no evidence they feel pain.

This is ridiculous! Dogs have four legs and they feel pain. Using Dr. Fraser's logic, I would say that since we have less than four legs, it is unlikely that we humans are capable of experiencing pain. Dr. Fraser is talking as if there is a curve that tells us how # of neurons are related to the intensity of pain.

I think that Dr. Fraser's logic is analogous to some scientists' argument "water on earth supports carbon-based life form. Therefore, no water on a planet means, no carbon-based life, implying no life." How can we make such far-fetched conclusions?

PETA regularly demonstrates at the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, and 10 years ago placed a full-page ad in a Rockland newspaper featuring an open letter from actress Mary Tyler Moore urging festival-goers to forego lobster.

"If we had to drop live pigs or chickens into scalding water, chances are that few of us would eat them. Why should it be any different for lobsters?" the ad read.

PETA's Karin Robertson called the Norwegian study biased, saying the government doesn't want to hurt the country's fishing industry.

"This is exactly like the tobacco industry claiming that smoking doesn't cause cancer," she said.

Robertson said many scientists believe lobsters do indeed feel pain. For instance, a zoologist with The Humane Society of the United States made a written declaration that lobsters can feel pain after a chef dismembered and sauteed a live lobster to prepare a Lobster Fra Diavolo dish on NBC's "Today" show in 1994.

But Mike Loughlin, who studied the boiling of lobsters when he was a University of Maine graduate student, said lobsters simply lack the brain capacity to feel pain.

"It's a semantic thing: No brain, no pain," said Loughlin, who now works as a biologist at the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission.

It's debatable whether the debate will ever be resolved.

The Norwegian study, even while saying it's unlikely that crustaceans feel pain, also cautioned that more research is needed because there is a scarcity of scientific knowledge on the subject.

Whether lobsters feel pain or not, many consumers will always hesitate at placing lobsters in boiling pots of water.

New Englanders may feel comfortable cooking their lobsters, but people outside the region often feel uneasy about boiling a live creature, said Kristen Millar, executive director of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council. "Consumers don't generally greet and meet an animal before they eat it," she said.

I wonder why most of us (including me, as I really don't think about the pain of the trees) are so desensitized to the pain and suffering of our co-living beings (humans and animals).