Lobsters look very different from humans, so it's hard for us to imagine how they perceive the world. Like humans they carry their young for nine months and can live for more than 100 years.
Contrary to claims made by seafood sellers, scientists have determind that lobsters, like all animals, can feel pain. Also, when kept in tanks, they may suffer from stress associated with confinement, low oxygen levels, and crowding. Most scientists agree that a lobster's nervous system is quite sophisticated. Neurobiologist Tom Abrams says lobsters have a "full array of senses."
Lobsters may feel even more pain than we would in similiar situations. According to invertebrate zoologist Jaren G. Hosley, "The lobster does not have an autonomic nervous system that puts it into a state of shock when it is harmed. It probably feels itself being cut...I think the lobster is in a great deal of pain from being cut open...[and] feels all the pain until its nervous system is destroyed" during cooking. This includes being boiled alive.
Anyone who has ever boiled a lobster alive knows that when dropped into scalding water, lobsters whip their bodies wildly and scrape the sides of the pot in a desperate attempt to escape. In the journal of Science, researcher Gordon Gunter described this method of killing lobsters as "unnecessary torture".
