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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Do you believe that shellfish feel pain?

168 replies

QuestionableMouse · 23/05/2020 13:21

Just been talking to my mum on the phone and we got to talking about stuff from childhood including our seaside trips. She used to buy two or three live crabs and boil them when we got home.

I was always horrified by it as a child and thought it was horrible. I'm still uncomfortable with the idea as an adult.

It seems that it's recommended to kill crabs/lobsters now before cooking.

OP posts:
Veterinari · 23/05/2020 20:02

@Nousernameforme
There's plenty of scientific evidence
Links in my previous posts, so it appears on this occasion PETA are correct

Dreeple · 23/05/2020 20:03

Aren’t PETA nutters?

Nousernameforme · 23/05/2020 20:53

They painted a sheep with red and said this is what happens when you shear sheep. No it's not you scaremongering twat badgers

CaptainButtock · 23/05/2020 20:58

@QuestionableMouse

'High welfare' Wtf is that?

Nombie · 23/05/2020 21:00

It's alive, it's an animal so yes it feels pain.

QuestionableMouse · 23/05/2020 21:06

@CaptainButtock

What do you think it means? Why the attitude?

OP posts:
Anotherlovelybitofsquirrel · 23/05/2020 21:12

Agreed @CaptainButtock a axing how people are so clueless isn't it.

Op high welfare?! You really are deluded.

QuestionableMouse · 23/05/2020 21:15

No I'm not. Why are you being so rude?

Let me guess that you don't eat meat?

OP posts:
1Morewineplease · 23/05/2020 21:22

An awful lot of posters have said “I think...” or are opinionated.
Some of the evidence quoted is opinions.
I believe a lot more research is needed into this.
The fact that mussels are closed before cooking , as they were chilled before, then open after boiling suggests some kind of living, organic change.
As I said, more research needed.

I don’t eat shellfish but I will happily eat a humanely despatched lamb etc...

trellishead · 23/05/2020 21:32

For god's sake. PETA do so much for animal welfare. Give them a break.

Dreeple · 23/05/2020 21:34

Nope, nobody gets a break.

WiddlinDiddlin · 23/05/2020 21:45

PETA get zero breaks at all, they've done bugger all for animal welfare and in some cases have done plenty of damage to the cause with their lies, misinformation and of course, pretending to rescue and rehome animals only to kill them instead.

Pain is a difficult thing to quantify, we can't even be sure that the pain I experience and describe is the same pain you experience and describe.. and we can talk to each other.

However, Professor Elwoods experiments (Queens University, Belfast, 2012) on crabs, and prawns, are consistent with them experiencing pain and learning to avoid it, even when doing so means a trade-off (for example, trading a quality shell for an inferior one, when the quality shell comes with low level intermittant shocks).

Elwoods experiments clearly show that this is more than simply a reflex, so yes, they experience pain.

On a common sense if anecdotal level, it makes no sense for anything to NOT experience pain, pain is how we avoid injury and damage to our bodies.. without the ability to experience pain any living creature is at risk.

Nottherealslimshady · 23/05/2020 21:46

Of course they do. We seem to believe that if an animals doesn't express pain in the same language as us, they dont feel it. All things with any kind on neural system feel pain, its essential to survival. All animals respond to painful things.

You're you're to chill shellfish before boiling them, it put them into a sleep state then they die before the boiling wakes them up, I dont believe that though, I think it just reduces their movement so we dont see them fight for their life.

I cant remember who but a scientist once thought we could use (I think) frog venom that is a paralyzing agent as an anaesthetic to carry out operations, he volunteered to test it. Turns out, he could still feel pain, just not respond, did not enjoy it.

Are you really sure the butcher provides high welfare meat? Our local one definitely doesn't, honestly I think he gets the stuff supermarkets wont buy. If I have to buy meat for relatives I order high welfare meat online.

Nottherealslimshady · 23/05/2020 21:51

Also! My lecturer at university studying neuroscience. Was doing a longstanding experiment where she electrocuted a rats cage over and over to give it PTSD, to then test treatments for PTSD . Then showed us a video of the poor rat being electrified, it screamed in fear and pain. Had the audacity to say oh dont worry it cant feel pain or fear. The very fact she was giving it PTSD proved the opposite in my opinion. I left that field of study straight after that lecture.

GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman · 23/05/2020 21:53

PETA want to abolish pet ownership. They misrepresent livestock farming in their videos. They euthanise fat more dogs than they rehome. They get no breaks at all.

Nottherealslimshady · 23/05/2020 21:56

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman how can you possibly know that? Have you ever had a conversation with any other species of animal? We dont know anything about what they think about. We dont even know what we think about. There are countless conversations on here where people talk about how different our thought processes are from each others.

etherealbeauty · 23/05/2020 22:03

sparklingbrook chickens are the animal that suffers the most ....they are jam packed and have their beam tips Lasered off because otherwise the conditions they are in send them literally insane and they start to peck eachother to death.

Watch Paul McCartney documentary ...if slaughter houses had glass walls

QuestionableMouse · 23/05/2020 22:05

My partner is a large animal vet. I'm sure the butcher he recommended provides high welfare meat.

Also PETA are animal rights activists. They don't care about animal welfare. They'd be quite happy if animals ceased to exist.

OP posts:
Peacocking · 23/05/2020 22:09

Theyre intelligent beings and of course they feel pain. I no longer eat any animal products since I realised the hypocrisy of saying I was an animal lover then paying people to raise (cruelly), kill and dismember animals for me to have as a small part of my food. Animal lovers do not eat any animal products and understand the harm to animals, environment, British countryside - or grass desert as it is in most places, and the harm to human health, but pet lovers might well eat animals.

As an aside, when I stopped eating dairy a totally unexpected side effect was the almost total disappearance of PMT. I can only assume hormones or something in dairy affected me very badly.

Dreeple · 23/05/2020 22:30

Theyre intelligent beings and of course they feel pain.

Crabs are not the tiniest bit intelligent.

Dreeple · 23/05/2020 22:32

@QuestionableMouse

Was the rat a crab?

Bellyfullofbiscuits · 23/05/2020 22:36

Why wouldn't they. Do you ?

Bellyfullofbiscuits · 23/05/2020 22:39

I always think.... If I do ??? Treat others as u went to be treated. How could anyone possibly live.

Bellyfullofbiscuits · 23/05/2020 22:40

++ want

tilder · 23/05/2020 22:40

I do. But I am not Cancer pagurus. Crabs are not intelligent beings. Have yo ever met a crab?