Target: Kevin Shea, Administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
Goal: Make boiling lobsters and other crustaceans alive a national felony.
Recent studies have confirmed what was already known to many— lobsters, crabs, crayfish, and other crustaceans are sentient and can feel pain in the same ways that can mammals and other animals. Still, in the U.S. and many other places throughout the world, crustaceans don’t receive the same levels of protection by current animal welfare legislation. These sentient creatures are forced to endure cruel methods of slaughter and are oftentimes boiled alive, without receiving any prior stunning to minimize their suffering.
Accounts by those who have boiled lobsters alive note that the creatures writhe and wriggle, trying desperately to escape the scalding water. In one instance that was videoed and published online, a crayfish even sliced off its own claw to avoid being boiled alive. These animals can suffer in these conditions upwards of three whole minutes, before eventually succumbing to an untimely death. If we must eat crustaceans in the first place, we at least owe them the respect of a painless death free of the immense suffering they are currently subjected to.
We must enforce the same regulations that are in place for other animals used in agricultural practices and do better to protect the feelings of these sentient beings. Sign this petition to urge the U.S. to follow after the actions of the UK and Switzerland and to outlaw this inhumane practice for good.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Administrator Shea,
It has been recently confirmed by a series of reports in the UK that lobsters and other crustaceans– such as crabs, shrimp, and crawfish– are, in fact, capable of feeling pain in the same ways that humans and other animals do. Crustaceans have relatively sophisticated nervous systems and retain memory of harmful stimuli they have experienced in the past. These creatures are able to learn about features of their environments, and avoid ones that are harmful to them.
While many other animals, like cows and pigs, receive protection under current U.S. animal welfare legislation, these laws do not extend to our crustacean counterparts. There are no official laws in place that require these animals to be stunted or chilled to minimize their sensibility to pain before they are dumped into pots of scalding water. To keep allowing this barbaric slaughter of sentient creatures is outright inhumane.
We are asking you to please advocate for these crustaceans and to enforce the same standards that are in place for other animals. While allegedly outlawed in the U.S., the boiling of live lobsters is still a common practice, and regulations must be properly enforced. Many other countries, such as Switzerland, Norway, and New Zealand, have already made the step towards improving the welfare standards of our world’s sea-faring animals, and it is now our turn. Stop subjecting these sentient animals to unnecessary torture.
Sincerely,
[Your Name here]
Photo Credit: rawpixel
Boil human babies alive. TOO MANY FUCKING HUMANS
You don’t get your point across with a comment like this.
Agreed, Naomi! Comments like that just make the people whose minds we are trying to change think we are irrational.
I agree guys, and Shawna wow..that’s waaaaay off point and extremely irrational.
Moving forward we totally agree putting an end to this as it has been EXTREMELY CRUEL, HARSH AND INHUMANE for these sensitive creatures. SIGNED!!!
YOU ARE DISGUSTING!!
YOU ARE ONE SICK BITCH, WHO NEEDS SERIOUS MENTAL HELP!!! YOU HAVE A HISTORY OF HORRIFIC COMMENTS I’VE TRACKED, AND SINCE THE AUTHORS OF THIS SITE ARE NOT TAKING ACTION TO STOP YOU, AND GET YOU THE HELP YOU SO CLEARLY NEED, I WILL BE REPORTING YOU TO ANY, AND ALL AUTHORITIES POSSIBLE!!! WE ARE ALL HERE TO DEFEND, AND PROTECT HELPLESS ANIMALS, ETC, AND YOUR SOLUTION IS ALWAYS TO SLAUGHTER, AND TORTURE HELPLESS BABIES, WHO HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THEIR OWN FATE, LET ALONE THE FATE OF THE CREATURES WE’RE FIGHTING TO PROTECT, SO STOP BRINGING THEM INTO IT!!! GET HELP NOW!!!!!
MAKING SURE EVERYONE KNOWS REPLY ABOVE IS TO THE PSYCHO, SHAWNA, NOT THE REST OF YOU RESPONDING TO HER SICKNESS!!
I agree.
Really, Shawna ???
This cruelty has to STOP already!!
And why is this still even a thing?!
Poor creatures don’t deserve this treatment, no animal does.
Coincido totalmente contigo Mateo!!!!
Disgusting how people eat these poor creatures KNOWING the horrific deaths they endured to be someone’s dinner plate!
It’s enough to make anyone vegetarian for sure, I agree it is truly sickening :/
Humans are the most revolting, selfish, cruel, despicable, depraved species ever. How would it feel for them to endure this obscenity?
Absolutely inhumane. Imagine being boiled alive? Of course they feel pain.
Humans are just CRUEL!!! This should have been\ put in Law years ago!!!!~ Just Heartbreaking!
WE TOTALLY AGREE!!! Let’s hope it happens now.
2022… Terrible!!! Nothing changed since the as it s said… Homo Sapiens…
This is beyond words, the cruelty to these innocent, intelligent, sentient creatures.
It is despicable how unconscious and cruel human beings are. There are no words. I cannot fathom this and it is heart breaking.
NEVER EATEN ONE….AND NEVER WILL KNOWING WHAT I KNOW THEY GO THROUGH.
THE QUESTION IS HOW CAN ANYONE DO THIS!??!?!?!? THESE SENTIENT BEINGS FEEL TORTUROUS PAIN! IT IS UNTHINKABLE THAT ALL THESE RESTAURANTS AND PEOPLE DO THIS LIKE IT IS NOTHING. TRY BEING BOILED ….YOU MINDLESS SOULLESS MAGETS.
STOP THIS NOW….IT NEVER SHOULD HAVE STARTED IN THE FIRST PLACE. THERE IS ENOUGH TO EAT DAMN IT!!!!!!! MAKE THIS ILLEGAL AND ENFORCE IT!!!!
As a vegan, I’m opposed to all animal exploitation, chickens in the US are routinely boiled alive, too. If boiling animals alive is bad, then killing animals is “more bad”. Be vegan for all the animals, none volunteer to die. All animals in the US are specifically exempt from the Animal Welfare Act, 90% are also exempt from the oxymoronic HSA, but I don’t understand why people praise laws that require violent suffering and death of animals anyway.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/17/chickens-freezing-to-death-and-boiled-alive-failings-in-us-slaughterhouses-exposed
Only the most depraved of mind, and lacking any ANY HUMAN CONSCIENCE could drop a living being into boiling water to suffer the most unimaginable pain !!!!!
ANYONE APPROVING OF DROPING A LIVE BEING INTO BOILING WATER NEEDS TO A TEA KETTLE POURED OVER THEM TO GET A SLIGHT IDEA OF WHAT INNOCENT BEINGS ARE BEING SUBJECTED TO!!!
. . . just ANOTHER failure of “human beings” which makes me deeply ashamed to be a member of the human race. This level of depravity exists nowhere else in any other species on earth.
Never dropped boiling water on your skin? Try it. Then imagine your whole body dropped in it. Why does it seem that this country is always one of the last to put humane practices into law.?
Humans do not care.
Monstrous monstrous evil, heartbreaking and horrific, karma is theirs – I feel you, poor lost innocent souls; their blood on your souls
The abuse, torture & murder of the innocents
Some heartbreaks can never be unseen, some horrors never unheard – PLEASE GOD
And the universe weeps tears of blood
Your life as theirs, as their death
This happens to countless dogs and cats daily in China and Asia everyday. When will it end?!
Never because the Chinese and other Asians are used to devour not only dogs and cats, but also rats, bats and all kinds of crawling insects – for them that is what the Italians call ‘bocatto di cardinale’!
Stinky slanted eyes!
Agreed. Many comments on here talk about torturing, etc people. While I agree there must be punishment, comments like that make us look nuts and won’t be taken seriously.
Animal cruelty is not acceptable in any form!
Ms. Williams, can we count on you to take a HARSHER stand against these money-hungry poachers and for the wildlife of this nation?
Thank you!
Ms. Williams,
Too bad there are no longer cannibals to devour the ‘poachers’…