Live Lobsters Torn Apart in Agony in Shocking Eyewitness Video
Workers at Maine Fair Trade Lobster in the US state of Maine can be seen dismembering conscious lobsters by tearing off their claws, puncturing their shells, and ripping their heads off in a shocking new eyewitness video given to PETA US.
Maine Fair Trade Lobster is part of the East Coast Seafood Group, which sells live and dead lobsters and dead fish throughout the US, Europe, and Asia.
Despite being torn limb from limb, lobsters often don’t die immediately. In an official report presented to the European Commission, a panel of scientific experts agreed beyond doubt that lobsters can suffer and feel pain – just as dogs, cats, pigs, and humans can. But they don’t enter a state of shock when injured, so they feel every moment of their slow, painful death. Dismembering fully conscious lobsters doesn’t cause instantaneous death and constitutes mutilation and torture, causing the animals pain and suffering, in apparent violation of state law.
Business as Usual
This horrific practice is standard operating procedure for Maine Fair Trade Lobster and is evidently also common throughout the Maine lobster industry. PETA US found live animals being torn apart at the now defunct Sea Hag Seafood processing plant in 2012 and again at the Linda Bean’s Maine Lobster processing plant in 2013. Some lobsters were mutilated and left to die in rubbish bins.
PETA US has filed a complaint with the local police department, and an investigation is underway. The group is also urging corporate buyers of lobster “products” to reconsider their relationship with East Coast Seafood Group while this practice is still going on.
Most people would never dream of mutilating or boiling a dog or cat to death, but it’s just as cruel to do that to a lobster.
You Can Help Lobsters
Here in the UK, Amazon.co.uk is allowing live lobsters to be sold through its online Marketplace. These helpless animals, many of whom originate in North America, are cruelly packaged and delivered by post as if they were nothing more than a packet of socks. Once they reach their destination, they endure an agonising death.
Please send a message now to Amazon UK Country Manager Douglas Gurr asking him to ban the sale of lobsters and other live animals.
