[katieHaylor (OP)]

Steve asks:

Switzerland has now banned boiling lobsters live. Do they experience pain; how do we know?

What do you think?

[gegg]

In Henry Marsh's 'Admissions' he says "Nobody knows at what point pain arises in nervous systems. If you deliver a painful stimulus to a lobster's claw, it will rub the painful area with the other claw"
That would mean a lobster could pass the test used by doctors to assess the depth of a coma- if a patient, when receiving a painful stimulus, puts their hand to the painful area, it is assumed that there is conscious perception of pain. I guess we could therefore say that lobsters consciously perceive pain.

[syhprum]

I think that whether or not it can be proved that they can perceive pain any animals that we eat should be killed first as if they can the problem arises with oysters that are normally eaten alive .

[alancalverd]

Most prey (including the hosts of parasites, such as humans) is eaten alive or killed by the process of eating. Humans are among the minority where the predator is larger than the prey but generally kills it first and eats in an entirely separate operation, mostly a matter of acquired taste since no other animal cooks its prey at all.

[evan_au]

This question was recently addressed by the Skeptoid podcast (15 minutes):
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4607

IMHO, if an animal is given a painful stimulus, and then avoids that stimulus/area, that animal is sufficiently conscious of pain that we should minimise pain for that species.

At one time it was thought that human babies were not conscious of pain, and surgery was conducted without anaesthetic. I assume that this is not the case today?

[petelamana]

Good question.

I'm not so sure I agree that lobsters, or any exoskelitized invertebrate can "feel" pain.  To feel pain two things are required, and this I know from when I suffered a broken back in 2010.  First there must be an ability to detect the stimuli, and second there must be an emotional capacity to interpret that stimuli as "pain."  For example, when I go to the dentist and on those rare occasions require dental work, I don't accept any anesthetic.  I simple don't mind the discomfort because I am not emotionally invested in the procedure.  However, when my daughter is injured (recently she tore her ACL), I feel a psychological discomfort - I "feel" her pain - because I am emotionally invested in my daughter.

As for lobsters, to be specific.  I don't believe it has ever been shown that they have any form of emotional capacity.  They may back away, for example, from a stimuli, but is that a reflex response or an attempt to flee?

I do know this, though, I would definitely feel a level of discomfort if I could no-longer enjoy a well prepared lobster ... smothered in butter ... mmm, butter.

[chiralSPO]

IMHO, if an animal is given a painful stimulus, and then avoids that stimulus/area, that animal is sufficiently conscious of pain that we should minimise pain for that species.

That ends up being a pretty widely met criterion. Even C. elegans (very simple animals, with only 302 neurons) appear to respond negatively to electric shocks, and will avoid areas associated with them, or will form Pavlovian responses, anticipating the shocks after a flash of light once they have been "trained."

I don't like the idea of causing unnecessary pain, but I would opt for a more refined way to distinguish the magnitude of anguish, because I suspect there is a very real difference between the experience of a roundworm and that of a mammal.

[petelamana]

That ends up being a pretty widely met criterion. Even C. elegans (very simple animals, with only 302 neurons) appear to respond negatively to electric shocks, and will avoid areas associated with them, or will form Pavlovian responses, anticipating the shocks after a flash of light once they have been "trained."

I don't like the idea of causing unnecessary pain, but I would opt for a more refined way to distinguish the magnitude of anguish, because I suspect there is a very real difference between the experience of a roundworm and that of a mammal.

I agree.  Pain is a generally a reflexive response.  The perceived intensity of the pain is a cognitive manifestation.  I worked in a hospital, to put myself through college, and one night we had a victim come in by ambulance.  He suffered a motorcycle accident, resulting in a compound fracture of his ankle.  Additionally, there was evidence that the exposed bone had ground into the pavement.  He should've been in tremendous pain, and yet he did not complain.  He held his composure until he saw his girlfriend-passenger, who was sitting behind him on the cycle.  He needed to know she was safe and sound.  He refused to accept the pain stimuli, thereby making it "painless."  Was he in shock?  Perhaps, but his vital signs were all nominal, and he showed no signs of shock trauma.  He simply was not emotionally invested in his own situation.  Of course, after he saw his girlfriend he calmly requested pain-numbing medication.

So?

[chris]

I was talking with Cambridge scientist Geoff Woods about this the other day. I raised it with him because, about 10 years ago, Geoff, who is a molecular geneticist, discovered the reason why some people cannot feel pain.

I asked Geoff about the patients he'd studied when he was tracking down the genetic cause of this congenital insensitivity to pain. One of the most remarkable things he said was that these patients sustain dreadful injuries: they break bones, they suffer - or rather don't suffer - terrible burns and scalds, and they cause gross damage to their bodies, but they do so painlessly.

In fact, some of the patients he described to me did things like jump off roofs to impress their friends; they broke limbs in the process, but it didn't hurt.

So, we got on to talking about lobsters because we realised that, even though these humans are presumably clever enough to realise that immersing your hand in boiling water is probably a bad thing to do, it doesn't really stop them. You need pain to do that.

My deduction is that animals therefore probably do feel pain and it serves as a useful aversive stimulus to avoid self-destructive behaviours.

[petelamana]

I've heard of Geoff Woods.  Brilliant man.

I agree that mammals definitely have a pain inspired defensive reaction, but lobsters?  I suppose I need to think more deeply about this.

[alancalverd]

The law is quite clear - or at least as clear as law can be.

Many (?50) years ago I recallthat the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals successfully prosecuted a woman for torturing a prawn. No kidding. She worked in a shellfish-packing factory in Scotland were the job was to boil prawns in water. For her own entertainment she put a live prawn directly on the hot plate where "it danced around for a bit". Presumably her employer had other reasons to get rid of her, but this disciplinary offence was enforced by the RSPCA who have constabulary authority to investigate and prosecute.

[katieHaylor (OP)]

This question has now been answered on The Naked Scientists, and you can listen to it here - https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/qotw-do-lobsters-feel-pain

[alancalverd]

Back to the OP for a moment. If it is illegal to boil a live lobster in Switzerland, how do they kill them?

Of course this isn't a problem for the Swiss, who don't have a sea coast, so presumably can import chilled and frozen lobster meat from morally defective nations that do. But it does raise a problem for friends of mine who catch lobsters commercially. Is it preferable for the lobster to be boiled on the boat, slowly suffocated and dehydrated then sold to a civilian whose only means of preparing it is to boil it, chilled into insensitivity then roused and killed (how, please?) by a professional chef or fishmonger, or killed by means as yet undetermined on the boat so it begins to decompose before reaching market?

Unfortunately the European Union did not destroy the British lobster fishery quite as thoroughly as the deep sea and pelagic fleet, so the question remains of considerable moral and commercial importance along the south and west coasts.

[Recher]

No. In order to feel pain there has to be a resident individual. There is no differentiated 'I' in a lobster just as there is not an 'I' in a head of lettuce,  cockroach, or a fish. To feel pain there must be, at least, a rudimentary level of self-awareness so that the organism can justifiably be said to "I feel the pain."

[alancalverd]

A brilliant analysis, flawed only by the obvious truth.

Lobsters do not attempt to mate with any other species, but are attracted by other lobsters. The males will fight with other males for mating priority and the females may reject their suitors. Therefore lobsters have at least a "rudimentary level of selfawareness" that distinguishes "I" from "he", and "us" from "everything else". Pretty much the same applies to all other animal species.

Unlike terrorists and football hooligans who only recognise "we" and should therefore be boiled. 

[Zer0]

Way to go Switzerland! 👍
👌Fantastic👌
Thanks for the good news Steve. ☺

P.S. - It's about time Mercy needs to be Imposed. 👊

[alancalverd]

The problem remains, however, as to how you should kill a lobster. Boiling is the standard procedure for small crustaceans such as shrimp, and AFAIK it is the only way to kill  a crab without rendering it inedible.

Do they shoot lobsters in Switzerland, or just export the problem by not importing them alive? The airport at Bangor, Maine, has my favorite safety warning notice: "No Live Lobsters Permitted in Passenger Cabin".

[mrsmith2211]

Back in the 70's it was assumed lobsters felt pain while getting boiled to death by my chef. My chef did not believe in boiling them alive. We would stick a knife through behind the head, swift death was the assumption, heard stories of scrambling screaming lobsters, but never had to witness it first hand thank god.

[alancalverd]

Severing the nerous system behind the cervical ganglion will certainly prevent sensation and movement of the legs and tail, but my suspicion is that most of the sensory organs are forward of the brain, in the antennae, eyes and mouth, as with any other animal. Thus the lobster is aware of pain but unable to do anything about it.

[AndroidNeox]

I think I read, years ago that direct neural monitoring of lobster brains showed a panic response in boiled lobsters but if they are refrigerated, first, in very cold water they become insensate and, dropped directly into boiling water, their brains were cooked before they woke up. I keep thinking Science News, but I've no idea of year.