Switzerland Bans Boiling Of Live Lobsters Due To Animal Cruelty

This was certainly an interesting thing to see on the Twitter news page last night. The Swiss have banned the boiling of Live Lobsters.

There is only one species on Earth that gets in arguments with each other regarding how they can make the process of killing a living creature’s life more enjoyable. “No don’t boil it alive, you cruel asshole! Make sure you stab it through the brain first!”

Humans are the best and I can’t get enough. What are we talking about here? The feelings of lobsters who we are going to kill? People that don’t want lobsters to feel pain should probably just not eat them at all. It’s a noble cause but I have bad news for you, no matter how you do it, consuming an animal for sustenance will probably be unpleasant for them. Like REALLY unpleasant. There is literally nothing worse that will happen to them in their entire lives than dying.

There are a couple more curious questions in this scenario.

First of all, Switzerland is completely landlocked. The nearest wild lobster is hundreds of Kilometres away. This means that any lobster currently being protected by this law have to be captured and transported in small containers across land for hours, if not days, until they are once again placed in storage tanks. This part alone seems less than ideal for living creatures.

Second of all, we don’t have a great way to ensure a painless way to kill them. The argument is that while there isn’t evidence of them having self-awareness or intelligence of their demise, especially compared to pigs or cows which we eat ALL THE TIME, but there is evidence that they react to tissue damage physically and hormonally. So the only way to immediately cease their existence is to detach the brain from the muscles. Lobsters do not have a large brain, rather a concentration of nerves that serves as their version of a brain, and the whole thing is covered by a hard shell. The method of stabbing it behind the eyes may work 9 times out of 10 for a marine biologist or surgeon, but will probably not be effective most times for the average joe.

Some people advocate for slowly freezing them to death, but that seems to be the even slower version of boiling them. In the words of my friend Michael Rapaport, “Am I supposed to wait until they die of old age?”

“We talkin bout killing shit to eat?” Not for sport… not for fun, just to eat?”

It is a peculiar argument to decipher when we’re talking about killing living things. How do you decide what the best way to end somethings life is? Especially when you are in the process of consuming it to sustain yourself for a 4-6 hour period before you go on and consume more living things.

P.S. This blog got premature epostulated and probably didn’t make much sense. Sorry for the gibberish before.