by In an effort to prevent the steaming of over 20,000 live lobsters at the Maine Lobster Festival this week, the animal welfare group PETA has sued the festival and the city of Rockland.
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According to the Portland Press Herald, PETA filed a complaint in Knox County Superior Court on July 24. The group calls the event a show of animal suffering that has been approved by the city.
The group said that because lobsters are routinely boiled while still alive at the festival, which has been going on for almost 80 years, the city where it is located and the festival itself are breaking Maine’s laws against animal cruelty in a public park.
Recent studies demonstrating that lobsters are capable of feeling pain, such as one conducted by the London School of Economics and Political Science that examined how a lobster’s neurological system reacts to pain and distress, form the basis of PETA’s complaint.
According to Dr. Jonathan Birch, who led the study that was published in 2021, on NPR’s Morning Edition, there is evidence that a lobster will continue to live for two to three minutes after being dropped into a pan of boiling water, and that during that time, the nervous system response continues very intensely, just like it would with you, me, a dog, a cat, or any other animal dropped into a pan of boiling water.
Some nations have even gone so far as to outlaw the custom of cooking live lobsters in favor of stunning or swiftly killing them before steaming them.
However, a large portion of current mainstream science has long held the view that lobsters are incapable of feeling pain, even in spite of this finding and earlier investigations.
Maine lobster researcher Rick Wahle told the Press Herald that the issue is contentious and that the crab has not yet been shown to have true pain receptors.
The festival organizers responded to the complaint by telling the Portland newspaper that they were utilizing conventional, legal, and generally recognized cooking methods in accordance with current science.
PETA stated that while they do not anticipate their lawsuit altering this year’s celebrations, which are scheduled from July 30 to August 3, they do hope it will be the final Maine Lobster Festival where lobsters are tortured to death.
For Boston.com, Katelyn Umholtz writes about cuisine and dining establishments. In addition, Katelyn writes a weekly food newsletter called The Dish.
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