Shellfish Feel Pain, Studies Suggest

[The Straight Story]

Shellfish Feel Pain, Studies Suggest

Shellfish, such as crabs, lobsters and shrimp, feel pain, suggests a new study that calls into question how food and aquaculture industries treat these animals.

Researchers have suspected for some time that live lobsters dunked into boiling water and rubber-banded crustaceans stored in crowded fish market tanks experience tremendous pain. We reported on that some years back. But it’s always a challenge for scientists to prove conclusively that a non-human is feeling pain.


“On a philosophical point, it is impossible to demonstrate absolutely that an animal experiences pain,” researcher Bob Elwood of the Queen’s School of Biological Sciences, was quoted as saying in a press release. “However, various criteria have been suggested regarding what we would expect if pain were to be experienced. The research at Queen’s has tested those criteria and the data is consistent with the idea of pain. Thus, we conclude that there is a strong probability of pain and the need to consider the welfare of these animals.”

...

Elwood described how it went: “Ninety crabs were each introduced individually to a tank with two dark shelters. On selecting their shelter of choice, some of the crabs were exposed to an electric shock. After some rest time, each crab was returned to the tank. Most stuck with what they knew best, returning to the shelter they had chosen first time around, where those that had been shocked on first choice again experienced a shock. When introduced to the tank for the third time, however, the vast majority of shocked crabs now went to the alternative safe shelter. Those not shocked continued to use their preferred shelter.”

http://news.discovery.com/animals/pets/evidence-mounts-that-shellfish-feel-pain-130116.htm

[appleannie1]

1. A lobster squeals when you drop it into hot water. Blue crabs try to escape a steamer.

Why would they not feel pain?

[eShirl]

26. The only "squealing" is trapped air escaping as the lobster cooks in its shell.

[Arugula Latte]

2. They have brains and nervous systems, sooo ...

[RomneyLies]

3. It is an abomination before the Lord to eat shellfish

Leviticus 11:

9 These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.

10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:

11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.

12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

GOD HATES CRAB CAKES!!!

[PADemD]

5. One wonders

If this was written after the writer observed a fatal allergic reaction to shellfish.

[hunter]

16. It had more to do with the way fish was marketed then.

They had no ice or modern dehydration facilities.

Semi-dried, salted, and somewhat fermented fish was still edible.

Shellfish sold in the same condition often killed people.

[Flaxbee]

4. Why the hell do people think that other organic beings don't feel pain? F*cking idiots!

People are so impossibly cruel.

[Zorra]

17. Totally agree, how could anyone not understand that?

[narnian60]

20. I'm with you on that, Flaxbee.

[mike_c]

6. this is a very contentious issue among biologists....

Seriously. Invertebrate pain perception is really really really poorly understood.

[Drahthaardogs]

7. Of course they feel pain.

They have a CNS, why would anyone expect them not to have some pain? If you eat meat, something had to die. It is pretty much that simple.

[mike_c]

14. it's not that simple actually....

There are LOTS of reasons to suspect that invertebrates might not perceive anything like what we experience as pain, and the evidence supporting invertebrate pain perception is spotty and inconclusive, at best. The study in the OP is typical-- it fails to distinguish between possible pain and other perceptions that might influence crustacean responses to electric shock, such as involuntary muscle contraction.

There is a strong evolutionary argument against pain perception in invertebrates too, especially short lived species like most arthropods. Pain perception evolved, and seems to be adaptive in vertebrates with relatively long lives and more plastic learned behaviors-- it makes sense to use disincentives like pain as mechanisms to help animals learn to avoid dangerous or injurious circumstances.

But there are few such incentives for short lived arthropods. Natural selection has largely favored hard-wiring innate behaviors for arthropods, which are small, short-lived animals in a dangerous world, for whom opportunities for learning-- modifying behavior following experience-- are all too often fatal. In an innate behavior world, pain as we experience it is cruel and unnecessary. More to the point, it might be maladaptive.

I have often watched insects in culture injure themselves or one another, tearing off limbs, antennae, wings, etc, and then going about their normal activities as though nothing at all had happened.

[angstlessk]

23. So maybe the pain they fell is more intense than our pain?

Since we don't know...We also think Muslims don't love their children as much as we in the western world love ours...

[Drahthaardogs]

25. Most animals don't feel pain like we do. I am dog man

(I train and play at many doggie games) my hunting dogs are tougher than I could ever be. My female gashed her shoulder wide open on a barbed wire fence and I did not realize it for about half and hour because she was ranging ahead and did not act like anything was wrong. She screamed bloody murder when she had to be put on the injured reserve list for the rest of the hunt though.

On the flip side, dogs do not deal with anxiety/stress well at all. When I have old dogs, it is not how much pain they are in that tells me it is time to be put to sleep, it is how much anxiety are they experiencing.

I guess I really do not care. I expect a lobster to feel pain/discomfort/agony whatever for a short period of time before its life expires when tossed into a boiling pot of water. Death is only painless for the very lucky. We are not torturing it. It is all over very quickly. We kill it to eat it. I do not expect it to be a particularly pleasant experience for the lobster.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

8. Why does it matter? We eat all sorts of food that can feel pain. nt

[RebelOne]

9. Oh yeah, and you are cold to the fact that

the steak you ate was a cow that felt pain when it was slaughtered?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

12. Things eat other eat things - it's the natural order of things.

Typically, in a natural setting, the thing that gets eaten is STILL alive and feeling as it's getting eaten.

[RomneyLies]

15. With most crabs, you pull the carapace, remove the gills, and split what's left in two.

The animal is dead in moments, probably the moment the carapace is pulled.

[Bosonic]

10. Meanwhile...

Fish cannot feel pain say scientists

A study has found that, even when caught on a hook and wriggling, the fish is impervious to pain because it does not have the necessary brain power.

The research, conducted by a team of seven scientists and published in the journal Fish and Fisheries, concluded that the fish’s reaction to being hooked is in fact just an unconscious reaction, rather than a response to pain.

Fish have already been found to have “nociceptors” - sensory receptors that in humans respond to potentially damaging stimuli by sending signals to the brain, allowing them to feel pain.

However, the latest research concluded that the mere presence of the receptors did not mean the animals felt pain, but only triggered a unconscious reaction to the threat.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9797948/Fish-cannot-feel-pain-say-scientists.html

[Mojorabbit]

19. I trained a tilapia in my lake

to come up whenever it saw me for a snack. If they are smart enough to id a vibration of me walking down the dock then it would seem they have enough brain to feel discomfort? I always cut the head off a fish right after I catch it just in case. I don't want them to suffer.

[longship]

11. The nerve of them!

Sorry. Didn't mean to be flippant. Couldn't resist.

[Leslie Valley]

13. The human foetus feels no pain before 24 weeks

I would hardly think that an invertebrate shellfish would be more highly developed and subject to pain than that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/25/human-foetus-no-pain-24-weeks

Lets not give the fundy anti-choice "right to lifers" anything to base their nonsense on.

[Zorra]

18. Our scientists say that humans don't feel pain, so we don't feel

at all guilty when we boil them alive.

Here is Dr. Grazmul Bfsplk of Cannaam University giving a lecture on the lack of pain receptors in humans:



And here is a video from last months roundup of humans on earth!

[LeftInTX]

21. Maybe they wouldn't if they had guns

[XRubicon]

22. If I were 1 inch tall, a lobster wouldn't think twice

about crushing and eating me alive. That's what I think as I drop them into boiling water.

[datasuspect]

24. sweet, delicious pain

that tastes good in mah belly!

[Puzzledtraveller]

27. Interesting, but ima still eat em, sorry