Why Don't Lobsters Get Any Respect?

How'd you like to be boiled alive? Or cut in half while you're still breathing and then tossed on the barbie? Or sliced and diced or chopped open to be served as live sushi? Or slowly steamed to death? Or killed in a microwave? Would you enjoy having your hands torn off while you're still conscious? Then why perpetrate those horrors on a lobster?

Wild-caught lobsters are often transported thousands of miles and put on ice for months or dumped into crowded, brightly lit tanks in the middle of busy supermarkets, where they're denied food so they don't dirty the water with waste. Their claws are tightly banded to prevent them from eating each other, until they are purchased and then tormented and killed in someone's kitchen.

Wolfgang Puck, the current darling of some animal advocates because he has pledged to serve only "humanely raised" animals in his restaurants, used to have his chefs knock out lobsters with stun guns, but now he apparently favors the chopping-in-half-while-still-alive method. Recently, Whole Foods Markets made a decision not to sell live lobsters after determining that there was no humane way of keeping lobsters in tanks. But they still offer frozen and prepared lobsters for sale.

Lobsters are nocturnal, territorial animals with their own communications system and social life, who explore their environment through their antennae and the hairs on their legs. They embark on seasonal journeys of 100 miles or more each year.

Oddly enough, lobsters have a few things in common with humans. Their childhood and adolescent years are roughly equivalent to ours. Female lobsters are pregnant for about nine months. They can live 100 years or longer. Recently a giant lobster was discovered at a supermarket in Long Island and rescued by a customer, ending up as a resident of the New York Aquarium. Hercules' age is estimated at 90 years.

Because they possess a nervous system, lobsters by definition are sentient. A 2005 Norwegian report commissioned by the government denied that invertebrates such as lobsters feel pain the same way vertebrates do, but the jury is still out for other scientists. Anyone who has boiled a lobster knows that they writhe wildly and appear to be trying to escape. It's clear that they are reacting to the hot water. The government of New Zealand protects lobsters through its humane slaughter legislation. Researcher Gordon Gunter has written that boiling alive is torture for a lobster. So until this issue is finally resolved, please give lobsters the benefit of the doubt and don't eat them.

Lobsters aren't a good food choice for many reasons. They have excess protein and cholesterol, the equivalent of a steak. And like all sea creatures, they contain toxins such as PCBs, dioxins and heavy metals. Seafood consumption is also the primary cause of food poisoning. Other reasons not to consume lobsters are that they are over fished in many areas and they are often caught young, before they have the chance to release their eggs.

If you want to help eliminate lobster exploitation, ask your local supermarket to get rid of its lobster tank, particularly if you find dead lobsters in the tank or if it's crowded or dirty. If you see a live lobster on a plate in a restaurant, recognize that lobsters will slowly suffocate unless their gills are kept moist and complain to the manager. You can also purchase and release lobsters into the ocean, but it must be done correctly. Please go to www.lobsterlib.com for the correct release procedure.

And remember that lobsters aren't the only crustaceans who are cruelly treated. Crawfish and crabs are also boiled alive or slowly killed in ethically questionable ways.