Article: Be kind to your seafood

Wow... They need scienists to confirm that a screaming lobster is actually experiencing pain by being thrown into boiling water?
 
Pitbull said:
Wow... They need scienists to confirm that a screaming lobster is actually experiencing pain by being thrown into boiling water?
Click to expand...

That sound isn't screaming, it's the sound of steam coming out of their shell.
 
I drown them in freshwater first. It takes a couple of minutes before they are still so my method is worse than boiling.
 
Use some lemon garlic butter on them, I heard that takes the pain away.
 
My mom and gran would do this when my grandfather and uncle brought lobsters home that they caught. I used to hate it. I heard you must put them in the freezer first to kill them?
 
I'm trying to think of a method of killing them that doesn't cause them pain. Generally as far as I understand it any form of sudden death is painful.
 
A bullet through the head should be painless. Most nerve impulses only travel at about 360km/h. A bullet's speed is much faster so a brain would be destroyed before the impulse gets there.
 
jes said:
A lobster thrown live into boiling water may suffer for many seconds, said a scientist who argued Thursday that crustaceans can likely feel pain.

You can view the page at http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/content.php/5958-Be-kind-to-your-seafood
Click to expand...

It's not possible to know if the lobster is suffering because it's not possible for the lobster to tell us that it is suffering. We can at best see a certain area of the brain light up i.e. receive more blood on functional MRI but that need not mean the lobster is suffering. Suffering is an internal state and only the lobster can know if it's suffering, only the lobster itself is privy to that information. We simply can't get it from outside. Likewise moving of the legs/body need also not indicate an animal is suffering but could just as easily be trying to get away from an undesirable situation.

It's similar to the Searle's Chinese Room experiment. A philosophical zombie may look like it's thinking consciously, but what it really is doing is calculating like a PC. It has no self awareness. It derives no meaning from what it does. It's an automaton, probably like the lobster.
 
"Crabs have their claws torn off and the live crab is thrown back in the sea. Lobsters and prawns have the front half of the body torn off from the abdomen which is kept for the meat. The nervous system in the head and thorax is still functional an hour later."
Click to expand...

A crab will tear it's own claw off if it's injured, or if it is hampering him.

EDIT: I've also read an article about an experiment where they injected bee venom into the lips of a fish, and the fish kept rubbing it's lips together as if in pain or extreme discomfort. I'm still waiting for a fish to tell me it feels no pain.
 
Last edited:
All the crays we catch get stuck in the freezer for 1hr before we braai them, when removed from deep freeze they are dead.
 
Hemps said:
All the crays we catch get stuck in the freezer for 1hr before we braai them, when removed from deep freeze they are dead.
Click to expand...
How do you know?
Maybe they're just frozen stiff :D
 
If broccoli had the capacity to feel pain, would you still enjoy eating it? Hell yes!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X