In Search of a Good Death for Lobsters

Lobsters' bubbling execution is the latest claws celebre in animals rights battle
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 17, 2009 2:18 AM CDT
In Search of a Good Death for Lobsters
We hardly knew ye.   (AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach)

The debate is growing heated over killing lobsters by boiling them alive, reports the Atlantic. Experiments earlier this year that purported to prove that shellfish feel pain have given momentum to efforts to ban the scalding death sentence. Shellfish are already covered by animals rights laws in New Zealand, and popping them into a boiling pot live is banned in an Italian town. The Brits electrocute them with a stunner cutely named a Crustastun. The entire European community is about to consider laws protecting shellfish.

So what's a Yank to do? Sidestep the legal issue, just like a crustacean, and simply do what you can to minimize lobster pain, recommends writer Trevor Corson. He sticks his lobsters in the freezer to slow their metabolism, then splits them open with a knife—which he says is almost enough to make him "want to become a vegetarian."  But not quite. "Then I think, if I'm going to eat meat, it's better to be clear-eyed about it. Let's honor the last living creatures in our kitchens, and kill them with respect ourselves. While we still can." (More lobster stories.)

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