An “animal-rights” lobby has gone to court to try to stop Rockland’s annual “egregiously cruel method of steaming thousands of lobsters alive.”
People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed its lawsuit in an attempt to get a judge to declare the Maine Lobster Festival a “public nuisance.”
Barring a Knox County Court order, the 78th-annual, four-day lobster celebration is scheduled to begin July 30.
PETA argues that the festival, if allowed to go forward, would be violating Maine law prohibiting “the torture and torment of animals.”
The animal-protection organization argues that “lobsters are sentient beings and are entitled to protection.’”
The lawsuit asserts that the festival prevents members of the public from accessing and enjoying Harbor Park “without being forced to witness extreme animal suffering as approximately 16,000 live lobsters are illegally tormented and killed each year.”
Festival organizers argue that Maine’s laws “do not prohibit the traditional preparation of lobster and that the state has not recognized boiling or steaming lobsters as a violation of animal welfare laws.”
The debate among scientists and even everyday Americans over whether lobsters feel pain has been going on since evolution began.
While some scientists believe lobsters do feel pain, others argue their nervous systems are not complex enough to process the sensation of pain.
So how to settle the argument once and for all is an assignment yet completed.
For a variety of views on the topic try visiting Reddit, where lay opinions reign supreme.
“Lobsters don’t have pain receptors, so they don’t feel pain like we do,” offered BreakfastBeerz. “They can ‘sense’ a stimulus they know they need to get away from, but they don’t feel it like we do.
“When they get out in boiling water, they know, ‘Yeah, this is bad, I need to get out of here,’ but it’s not a burning sensation.”
As evidence of his theory, BreakfastBeerz said that if lobsters felt pain, they wouldn’t be able to get on with their day after they lose a whole arm, as they often do.
StayProsty wasn’t worried enough about lobsters feeling pain to avoid adding a little humor to the discussion:
“Plants feel suffering too. That’s why pine trees can rapidly shed their cones when the weather is inconsistent. Shedding cones is a survival instinct, and doing so is basically a panic response.”
