Boiling lobsters alive to be banned under new UK bill
By Natalie O'NeillJuly 7, 2021 | 3:55pm | Updated
Boiling lobsters alive will be banned in the United Kingdom.Alamy
Now animal activists have their claws out over seafood.
Boiling lobsters alive would be banned in the United Kingdom under new legislation that protects the “welfare rights” of crustaceans and mollusks, according to a report Wednesday.
Parliament is considering updating its Animal Welfare Bill — which defends against the inhumane treatment of creatures with backbones — to include invertebrates such as lobsters, crabs, octopuses and squid, according to the Evening Standard.
The bill, which is making its way through the legislature’s House of Lords, would require fishermen and chefs to stun or chill the sea creatures before boiling them, which is thought to be a more humane method of cooking.
“There is more than enough evidence for the ability of these sensitive, captivating creatures to feel pain and suffer. They undergo appalling treatment in the food industry,” Maisie Tomlinson, co-director of the group Crustacean Compassion, which supports the bill, told the Times of London.
But there’s some debate over whether the creatures truly experience pain — at least in the way humans feel it.
“Crustaceans have long been viewed as maintaining reflexes that do not cause internal suffering, which would mean they do not truly feel pain,” according to the environmental science center envirobites.org. “In some animals the ‘pain’ signal never reaches the brain and therefore the reflex reaction is kept separate from a pain-induced reaction.”
Boiling lobsters and other crustaceans alive is already illegal in countries such as Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand.
https://nypost.com/2021/07/07/uk-bil...obsters-alive/
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