Thursday, June 27, 2013

SCIENTIST: Yes, That Lobster You're Boiling Alive Is Probably In Real Pain

It's impossible to "prove" that a person feels pain.

http://www.businessinsider.com/scientist-lobsters-can-feel-pain-2013-1

Agence France Presse Jan. 16, 2013

A lobster thrown live into boiling water may suffer for many seconds, said a scientist who argued Thursday that crustaceans can likely feel pain.

A set of experiments on crabs revealed that the animals are willing to give up a valuable dark hiding place in order to avoid an electric shock, an indicator of pain, said a study in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Crabs in the study learned to avoid the shelter in a laboratory tank where they had repeatedly received a shock, said study leader Bob Elwood of Queen's University in Belfast.

"They were willing to give up their hideaway in order to avoid the source of their probable pain."

Elwood told AFP it was impossible to prove beyond doubt that the animals feel pain, but the research results were "consistent" with pain and added: "Perhaps we should err on the side of caution".

Elwood said billions of prawns, crabs and lobster are caught or reared for human consumption every year and treated in "very extreme ways."

"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."

The biologist said many people assumed that because crustaceans do not have a brain resembling that of vertebrate animals, they could not feel pain.

"Crustaceans are invertebrates and people do not care about invertebrates," he said.

"More consideration of the treatment of these animals is needed as a potentially very large problem is being ignored."


http://news.discovery.com/animals/pets/evidence-mounts-that-shellfish-feel-pain-130116.htm

Jan 16, 2013 11:17 PM ET // by Jennifer Viegas

Shellfish, such as crabs, lobsters and shrimp, feel pain, suggests a new study that calls into question how food and aquaculture industries treat these animals.

Researchers have suspected for some time that live lobsters dunked into boiling water and rubber-banded crustaceans stored in crowded fish market tanks experience tremendous pain. We reported on that some years back. But it’s always a challenge for scientists to prove conclusively that a non-human is feeling pain.

“On a philosophical point, it is impossible to demonstrate absolutely that an animal experiences pain,” researcher Bob Elwood of the Queen’s School of Biological Sciences, was quoted as saying in a press release. “However, various criteria have been suggested regarding what we would expect if pain were to be experienced. The research at Queen’s has tested those criteria and the data is consistent with the idea of pain. Thus, we conclude that there is a strong probability of pain and the need to consider the welfare of these animals.”

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