[Pepper]

It is the ethical dilemma that for decades has troubled the rich and aspiring the world over: when you place a live lobster in a pot of boiling water, does it feel pain?
Norwegian scientists were asked to investigate pain, discomfort and stress in invertebrates and claim now to have discovered that the answer is no.

Their conclusion applies also to crabs and to live worms on a fish hook. None of these feel a thing. Which is good news for Norwegian fishermen at least.

Their government was considering a ban on live worms as fish bait under revisions to its animal protection laws - but only if it hurt. Wenche Farstad of the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science in Oslo now says it does not.

"It seems to be only reflex curling when put on the hook. They might sense something but it is not painful and does not compromise their well-being," said Prof Farstad, who chaired the panel that prepared the government report. "The common earthworm has a very simple nervous system. It can be cut in two and continue with its business."

The report looked at welfare implications of everything from cooking live crabs and lobsters to keeping bees. Invertebrates are animals without backbones, covering creatures from insects and spiders to mollusks and crustaceans.

Honeybees deserve special care, Prof Farstad said, because they display social behaviour and a capacity to learn and cooperate. But invertebrates do not feel pain because they have basic nervous systems and small brains.

Peter Fraser, a marine biologist at the University of Aberdeen, says crabs and lobsters have only about 100,000 neurons, compared with 100bn in people and other vertebrates. While this allows them to react to threatening stimuli, he said there is no evidence they feel pain.

Tiny perforations in leg bones allow crabs and lobsters to jettison limbs if trapped by predators. "That doesn't demonstrate whether they feel pain or not, but it does demonstrate they have very different mechanisms," Dr Fraser said. "If we tried to throw off a leg I'd imagine that would be very painful indeed."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/animalrights/story/0,11917,1408050,00.html

[booger]

How did they prove that they don't feel pain? I am so not a PETA-type person so I'm not into all of that stuff about sparing every bit of pain in the world. But...Really, how did they prove it from a scientific standpoint? Or did they just make assumptions based on the simple nervous sytem? Isn't pain at least a partially perceived thing? Do invertebrates "perceive" anything? Do "lower" mammals "perceive"? Do "higher" animals, other than humans "perceive"? If not, do they experience less pain/discomfort? Pain without perception--how is that different than straight-out-of-the-box pain?

I'll be sure to ask the worm next time I skewer it on my hook. My head hurts. :crazy:

[Jodi]

Pain or not...it's still inhuman to drop live lobsters in boiling water. I can't stand seeing that done..and won't eat lobster because of it.





Jodi

[SageTheRage]

Pain or not...it's still inhuman to drop live lobsters in boiling water. I can't stand seeing that done..and won't eat lobster because of it.





Jodi


I may be totally incorrect but I thought the process of cooking lobster began with warm water which lulls the lobster into a sleep state and as the water continues to heat up the lobster goes into a deeper sleep and is actually dead before the water boils. No?

[Brooks]

Sage, as I recall, that's a great way to ruin the lobster meat, or it would be done more regularly that way.

A standard pharmacology experiment is to tie down a rat, give it the blind anesthetic, and then measure the response to, say, the electrode being applied to the rat's tail. You're looking for a reaction rather like the squirming worm. The above article is all too reminiscent of the logic that was applied centuries ago during the Age of Reason as to why the lower animals have no comparable sensations, that it is all just reflex.

From the way the article describe the study, it is quite inconclusive.

[Crabapple Plum]

B.S. All living things experience pain. It's called life.

That's why you are supposed to drop the lobster in the kettle head first. Cooking his brain first eliminates the pain of having his tail cooking while he's trying to climb out of the pot.

This one is funny.---"It seems to be only reflex curling when put on the hook. They might sense something but it is not painful and does not compromise their well-being," ----

I would definitely say that piercing a worm with a hook, dropping him in the water under the noses of lots of hungry fish compromises the worm's wellbeing!