Award-winning animal welfare organisation Crustacean Compassion is urging consumers to have a compassionate Christmas by taking five steps to avoid causing unnecessary suffering to decapod crustaceans.
The festive season is a popular time for people to consume seafood, sometimes even in place of Turkey and a poll commissioned for Crustacean Compassion shows, Christmas is also the most popular occasion for purchasing live decapod crustaceans to cook and eat at home.
Lobster, crab, prawns, shrimp, and langoustine (often sold as scampi) are popular food choices for people to eat at home and at restaurants over the holiday season. But whilst consumers may understand the welfare issues which exist around meat and eggs, many have no idea of the same welfare compromises that affect decapod crustaceans, both farmed and wild caught.
Crustacean Compassion is a not-for-profit animal welfare organisation which campaigns for the legislative protection and humane treatment of decapod crustaceans such as lobsters, crabs, prawns and nephrops, based on the scientific evidence of their sentience. Crustacean Compassion does not campaign against the use of decapod crustaceans as food. Instead, it welcomes good practice in the food industry and believes all decapod crustaceans should have their species-specific needs met.
Now Crustacean Compassion is urging consumers to take FIVE STEPS to considering welfare for these sentient animals who have been scientifically proven to feel pain fear and pleasure and who often face unnecessary suffering as part of the sea to plate journey.
1. Don’t buy live lobsters (or crabs) to kill and cook at home – Crustacean Compassion, believe there is no humane way for a member of the public to kill a lobster at home as both believe electrical stunning before killing lobsters is the most humane and effective method as it renders them immediately insensible before death which then occurs within seconds. Plunging them into boiling water, freezing them or ‘drowning’ them in fresh water are not humane. Equally stabbing the lobster between the eyes so it directly destroys the brain isn’t always a quick and humane way to slaughter it and chilling it first does not negate this. Lobsters have 13 brain centres, so unless you know exactly what you are doing, it is likely to cause the animal unnecessary suffering.
To humanely slaughter a crab or lobster, they must firstly be electrically stunned effectively, followed by mechanical killing. Therefore, it is not possible to humanely slaughter these animals at home, without causing undue suffering.
2. Don’t do or gift cookery courses which teach people how to kill and cook live decapod crustaceans so they can do so at home.
To humanely slaughter a crab or lobster, they must firstly be electrically stunned, followed by mechanical killing, before they are cooked. Therefore, it is not possible to humanely slaughter these animals at home, without causing undue suffering.
3. If you are thinking about serving scampi at home or ordering it in a pub or restaurant – find out more about where it comes from as part of Crustacean Compassion’s Close the Loophole Campaign.
Footage filmed on an unidentified UK fishing boat, shows workers pulling the tails off langoustine (nephrops) while they are conscious, with the animals often taking minutes to die after their heads and bodies have been discarded, so the tail can be marketed to consumers as ‘scampi’. To find out more visit https://www.crustaceancompassion.org/take-action
4. Do not eat at any restaurant which advertises live lobster or crab and cannot assure you it has a machine to electrically stun them before they are mechanically killed humanely.
To humanely slaughter a crab or lobster, they must firstly be electrically stunned, followed by mechanical killing, before they are cooked.
5. Look closely before buying frozen prawns as chances are they would not be able to look back at you, even if they were still alive.
Many prawns, especially those farmed in Asian have been subject to the cruel practice or eyestalk ablation, the removal or destruction of the eyestalk of farmed shrimps and prawns whilst they are alive and fully able to feel it. This is done as their eyestalks are linked to reproductive hormones, so their destruction is thought to stimulate egg production.
Dr Ben Sturgeon, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Crustacean Compassion said: “Every Christmas the enlightened British public go out shopping and do their best to ensure they there are buying higher welfare meat and poultry but they have no idea what to consider when it comes to decapods even though they are legally recognised as being sentient thus having the ability to feel pain and suffer.
“Unlike most other live animals in the food sector, decapods currently have little to no legal protection from inhumane practices during capture, handling, transport, storage and slaughter. There is also widespread use of non-therapeutic mutilations – procedures which destroy, remove or damage the limbs or other body parts and so finding higher welfare products can be challenging.”
Crustacean Compassion believes until its second Snapshot report is published in January 2023 the simplest way for consumers to have a compassion Christmas is to follow its FIVE STEPS and visit the website to find out more about how to help improve the welfare of decapod crustaceans.
The Snapshot is the first UK Industry benchmark to assess the management and reporting practices of 30 UK companies including household name brands and all major supermarkets. It covers the welfare of decapod crustaceans at every level of the supply chain, from capture and handling to storage and slaughter, scoring companies on key criterial and identifying areas of progress as well as areas where improvements are needed.
