Everyone has seen the aquaria, in restaurants and shops, stuffed with lobsters and crabs with their scissors taped waiting for a horrendous fate: being boiled alive! Like insensitive objects they are being tossed and turned during transportation. Besides stress, the animals suffer from broken legs and antennas from this tossing and turning.
For a long time people assumed that these animals, like fish, don't have a consciousness or feelings and therefore couldn't suffer from pain. This is the main reason that these animals are being used as test animals. In the process of making food out of these animals, they are subjected to methods such as live cooking. Methods that are outdated and unnecessary cruel.
In stores and restaurants where these animals are offered for sale, they are being treated horrendously. Lobsters with taped scissors are thrown on top of each other in a water basin, where they can't move.
Research shows that invertebrates do have pain, perception and consciousness. They can learn and have a memory!
A serious indication that invertebrates do experience pain is the proven presence of opium-like (opioid) substances in their body. Opioids are found in the body of vertebrates and ensure that the pain is softened or even completely removed. A series of experiments shows that the administration of opioids in invertebrates caused the same effect as snails, shrimps, worms and insects. The boundaries between invertebrate and vertebrate animals are not as strict as we thought.
That means that these animals should be treated with the greatest care. They must have plenty of space in water basins without their scissors being taped. The common killing methods, such as live cooking, are for the reason that they can feel ethically indefensible. They should be replaced by other, more animal-friendly methods.
Help us tell the Dutch government to ban the regular killing methods en introduce new more animal-friendly methods.
If you want to read the information in Dutch, you can go to: http://www.vissenbescherming.nl/nw-17392-7-3440474/nieuws/kunnen_kreeften_en_krabben_pijn_lijden.html?page=1
