For the Birds

City officials in a town in Northern Italy have passed animal rights legislation that essentially bans the boiling of live lobsters as "useless torture," reports the Daily Telegraph.

The new law, passed in the town of Reggio Emilia near Bologna, also requires "sociable" birds to be kept in pairs, regulates the size of bird cages, makes it illegal to keep a goldfish in a round glass bowl and requires owners to ensure that each pet sharing a meal gets an equal portion.

Some city residents were obviously caught off guard by legislation.

"I'd like someone on the council to explain how people are supposed to determine that a bird is 'sociable,'" said resident Davide Nitrosi. "Also, how am I supposed to kill a lobster before cooking it? Hit it on the head?"


Source (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114169,00.html)


PC or plain stupidity?

On a side note - Cooking a lobster after it is dead can make people sick.

Animal cruelty shouldn't count when its against arthropods.

well that's interesting. i'd say it's a step in the right direction but a little off the mark. how do you kill a lobster without boiling it?
and how exactly do you enforce the rest of that? maybe your sociable bird (like my little keet) wants its parent's full attention and wouldn't want to share it with another bird.

mmmm. Lobster. Cockroach of the sea.

You HAVE to cook lobster (crabs, too) alive. If you don't, they will quickly become riddled with nasty bacteria that are not in anyway good for you to consume. Two ways generally given to cook one: 1. Boil alive. 2. Split its head open, alive, and toss the tail quickly into a hot oven.

I suppose they could be frozen slowly and they'd die a slow death and be frozen before the pathogens proliferate, but my understanding is that the meat isn't as good that way.

hi guys

about the lobster, its concidered mindlessly cruel in australia to kill a cray (similar) by boiling

the only HUMAINE way to kill live cray (which we have at the restaraunt i work at) is by pithing.
that means holding a quited cray (ie put in the fridge to calm and numb it for a while) on the choping bord and then insert the knife into the back of the head and as quickly as possable cut forward cuting the brain in half

dead, Instantly. no pain

as for it making you sick, what idiocy

the BEST way to serve cray is cut in half, fried in garlic butter and then baked. Its to die for:) and i garentie its TOTALLY safe

its totaly safe to keep a half cray for a couple of days in a fridge AND you can buy raw dead cray at the fish markets. totally safe

you have about 2-3 day life shelf on all raw seafood but you MUST treat it properly. no leaving it on the bench in open air. store on a perferated tray so it can drain at 1-4C. The 2hr-4hr rule doesn't applie tho. Its one hr for seafood

By the way

Hi everyone

missed you all

Neither PC nor stupid. Its common decency.
You wouldn't call not torturing children "pc". Its just the right way to be.
You put lobsters on ice, they fall into a sleep they never awake from. Doesn't change the way they taste or anything. this is just common knowledge.

Also I like that thing about social birds, it should also apply to social fish. I have some clown loaches and to think some people keep a single clown loach makes me so depressed after watching my group interact.
Italy could use some stricter animal rights laws, around the fishing markets seeing people takeing bites out of live octapus white with fright is a common occurence.
The way we treat many animals is just plain ignorance where an understanding of that animal would cause all but the most hardcore sadists to change their ways.
The excuse "how do we know if our bird is social" is a lousy one, if you don't know whether an animal is social or not you obviously don't know enough about that animal to be owning it and having it rely on you for survival.
I mean, whether an animal is social or not is a pretty substantial aspect of that animal. If you don't know that much about an animal you shouldn't have it plain and simple.

The making sure the food portions are the same is a little over the top. Does that apply to people who have a mastiff and jack russel?

Hi Asguard.
Precisely right, you can kill them simply by cutting their neck. And even if you couldn't, there's nothing that forces people to eat lobster. I've never eaten lobster in my life (because of the way they're cooked) and I haven't perished from lack of lobster.
Vicious brats.

Speaking of sadism, most sociopaths start by torturing animals. Rather telling, no?

Yeah whats the deal with that? Its so annoying, I want to look up to serial killers but then i always find out they used to shoot arrows at their dog or something and I just hate them:(
Who am I supposed to idolise? Have there been any animal friendly serial killers? Not the violent rage short fuse killers, I have nothing in common with those freaks, but calm and collected fans of human suffering? Were they all animal torturers? :(

I've heard a bunch of stories about this. Some people say that if boil the water and then put the lobster in it killis it instantly, others that if you put the lobster in and then start boliing it it won't notice the gradual temperapture change because its brain isn't complex enough, or most simplistically, that lobsters are just too stupid to feel pain at all....its interesting that people made up these stories rather than ceasing to eat lobsters(or killing them before boiling them), perhaps it was just assumed that it wouldn't be standard practice if it was so cruel, so something along those lines must be true.

Dr. Lou:
Who am I supposed to idolise? Have there been any animal friendly serial killers?

Hitler was an animal lover, he wasn't a vegetarian for compassionate reasons but he did push for a prohibition of vivisection in the third reich and enact laws requiring the humane slaughter of livestock.

Edward Kemper, I believe, was a member of Save the Whales.

Erm... wouldn't it be a simple task to kill a lobster pre-boiling?

Just take a knife and stab it cleanly in the brain.

xev if lobster is anything like cray you have NO idea what you are missing:P

but still there are good and bad ways to kill things and a knife is better than hot water

missed YOU heeps xev

what you been up to?

[QUOTE=Asguard]xev if lobster is anything like cray you have NO idea what you are missing:P
QUOTE]

hey dude,

we call lobsters crayfish in Australia, it's exactly the same creature, not sure why though.

you from Oz?

In the US, the crayfish(sometimes called crawfish) is a seperate animal, which resembles a lobster, but is generally smaller and is found in fresh water.

In the US, the crayfish(sometimes called crawfish) is a seperate animal, which resembles a lobster, but is generally smaller and is found in fresh water.

I think what you are now referring to is a yabbi, which we have in Oz, much smaller than lobster and crayfish.......

Kinda like a prawn with pincers right?

not really, more a small gray lobster.
http://www.mackers.com/crayfish/

They're not exactly the same, Nebuchadnezzar. Both American and European lobsters have claws, the Australian versions do not, for starters. Apart from the freshwater crays like Yabbies and Marron which are similar, but again not the same, to the American Crawfish.

Different animals, all now called lobsters because it makes our restaurants, which have been cooking crayfish for a few hundred years, have recently decided it makes them look more cosmopolitan to call them lobsters, not to mention killing them humanely beforehand, presumably to cater to the sensitivities of any of those who empathise with crustaceans and care for their sensibilities and who happen to be wandering about the kitchen. Still, they all taste very similar if not the same. Rather good.

I cannot believe you're all making arguments for the humane treatment of a crustacean before cooking it. Next, we'll all be trying to figure out the least harmful way to kill mussels and oysters before boiling them. Idiots.

I cannot believe you're all making arguments for the humane treatment of a crustacean before cooking it. Next, we'll all be trying to figure out the least harmful way to kill mussels and oysters before boiling them. Idiots.
I guess many of us just feel absolutly guilty when we put them in boiling water when they are still alive. The noise they make as they try to frantically scramble out of the boiling pot just puts people off as it is a realisation that they do feel pain. Putting them to sleep first is more humane and it helps ease our guilt when we chow down.

Mmmmm yabbies.. great, now I'm going to crave fresh water crays :D.

:confused:
Fresh water crays are shit, why would anyone opt for them over lobster? Thats really bizarre. Fresh water crays are like survival food for the person lost in the wilderness. In real life they need to be heavily marinated to even be edible. And they're never great, lobsters are in a completely different league, as are prawns.

You can save torturing anything by putting it on ice, including mussels and oysters. Just because you can't relate to their jet valve the way you can a persons face doesn't make it any less diabolical to boil them alive.

You've obviously never had fresh marron straight from the river then, Dr Lou. Survival food indeed...

There is a simple ethical solution to this issue: Don't eat Lobster; leave them be. We already have enough options, chicken, turkey, eggs, fish, vegeterian and good ole GM food. Why do we have to eat other animals? Would you conider it ethical, if something wanted to eat you.

In fact should we even be eating chicken, turkey, and fish - do they not feel pain too?

Would you conider it ethical, if something wanted to eat you.
I most definately would, uber ethical even.
I think anyone that wouldn't certainly has no business eating meat.

I grill , boil, steam and bake them. ;)

there is no ethical reason not to eat lobsters,

and I wouldn't care if there was...i'd still eat 'em

When a lobster starts sketching out prime numbers let me know. Else, screw them.




If I didn't want my food to suffer I'd become a vegan.

Boiling, baking, or pithing a lobster doesn't seem to be any less ethical or cruel than a shark munching on one with huge jagged teeth. They're probably still alive for the first few bites ... unless they're swallowed whole by one of the bigger sharks, then they sit and slowly digest (alive, most likely) in the stomach for days.

Seems to be perfectly acceptable for a cheetah to tear out the throat of a gazelle, while her young tear up and eat its belly while it's still breathing, or a racoon to open up a hatchling gator egg in the Everglades and eat the little baby gator before it even has a chance to be "born", that's just nature, the "circle of life" - but NOOOO ... we shouldn't boil a sea-roach because it's cruel?

Right.

The diffrence being, the cheater needs to eat the creature it just killed, we do not, yes, its best if we eat some meats (one that can be killed humainly), but not boiling something alive....

We live in a world full of choice

animals are stupid, we can eat whatever we want.....

thank god for fish farming! now we'll have lobsters forever!

and soon they won't even be expensive, you can have it seven nights a week.

Or.

You could avoid all of this idiocy and just be a vegetarian.

*bows all around*

Yes, thank you for the applause for the shockingly original, creative, new idea that no one could possibly have thought of. ;)

animals are stupid, we can eat whatever we want.....

By your logic I should eat you.

Ask a Saharan nomad to be vegetarian and watch his expression. The ethical question is whether it's the animal's suffering that makes it wrong. Could you breed animals with no sense of pain and bypass the ethical complications? Because once you can justify killing something, isn't the way it's killed is just a matter of preference? You're going to take its life whether it likes it or not. All things considered, you're hardly doing the lobster a favour by killing it softly, so to speak.

On the other hand, if you have respect for it, where does that respect come from? True respect for all life would have you dying a slow death from hunger or living of base minerals and substitutes (which weren't avaliable until recently). So are you just trying to placate your conscience?

At least in that respect, vegeterianism is a quasi-religious expression related to law and compensation, like sacrifice. It's a moral comment on the way nature is ordered and the requirements of life. Even the word "humane" suggests a mode of action that reflects on being human, as opposed to "being natural".

Show a saharan nomad the attitude some people have towards animals and watch his expression. If you don't think saharan nomads, bushmen, massai etc have respect for animals you're mindnumbingly ignorant.

Why is it that if any kind of animal rights are being discussed, the retorts revolve around how people are supposed to eat meat? Even if its like "say no to making medicine out of tigers penises" someone will say "humans have a digestive tract suited to eating meat and bla bla"
Wtf does that have to do with anything?
Why are people so basic that they can't distinguish between killing and mistreating/disrespecting?
Killing animals for food was never supposed to be a rage driven activity, we aren't angry at animals when we eat them. If you are, go see a psychologist, or better yet go duke it out with a lion face to face.
Human anger, aggression, etc is intended for other humans. Hunting animals was (and is for hunter gatherer tribes that still exist) a spiritual experience. And utmost respect was shown to fallen prey. Anger is reserved for members of your own species, organisms you can relate to, communicate with, understand, and thus rightfully become angry with.

I'm not against eating meat, I'm against the mindset seen in people today. Restricted from venting their anger on other people, they take it out on the living creatures that have no laws protecting them. Usually just by thinking like an idiot (ie nebuchudnezzar and his "fuck them :mad:" attitude), but it often gets worse with physical violence, and its just disgusting, cowardly and pathetic. The dispicable look that appears on someones face when they are enjoying hurting an animal that can't defend itself.
Nothing is uglier than these people, not a "sea-roach" or anything. These people should be boiled alive. Thats not a passive half hearted comment. I would turn up the heat, and slowly lower these people into a boiling pot of water feet first while looking them in the eyes and spitting at them. Set up the contraption and I'll be there.

Why do you assume I suggested they didn't respect life? On the contrary, they have so much respect for life because they know their own lives depend on it.

An awful lot of hate there in those last few sentences there, Doc.
I doubt seriously that people lower the lobster in the pot with an evil grin bellowing "bwahahaha" in utter hate and agression towards the animal. They're just cooking it the way they've been instructed to for centuries. They don't stare into its eyes and spit at it and get some morbid satisfaction out of its death. They're just cooking dinner. It may be mindless (even heartless) but I'm certain it's not malicious.

Not-so-half-heartedly enjoying the slow torturous death of a fellow human being would certainly be be malicious.

Why do you try to ignore that there are people who enjoy hurting animals? And many of them. I'm not saying everyone that boils a lobster is one of these people. But these people are everywhere. The mindset has been shown in this thread. People insult animals to justify eating them as though the animal is some enemy of theirs.

Fellow human being? What does that mean? Are they my mother? father? Brother? Friend? No?
Then fellow nothing. They are competition, they actually are my enemy. I'm one of the few people in modern society that directs anger in the direction it was intended to be directed. At rival humans. Animals have summoned no anger in me, how could they? You might not think you are angry at animals but if you'd save a stranger before a gorrila(like most dispicable viscious humans would) then I can only assume that gorrilas make you angry. There is good reason to let that human die. There is no reason whatsoever to let the gorrila die.
But people en masse have been brainwashed into having an "us" and "them" mentality when it comes to humans and other animals.
Thats not natural, Humans never have been a unified team. Being a social animal doesn't imply being one species taking on the world.
The only vs we are supposed to be involved in is between tribe a and tribe b. We are supposed to hunt animals, but fight and kill people.
Other people are supposed to be the objects of our violence. Thats the life we are in, its impossible to have a "beef" with a bear right? You don't like the way he hibernates??? You can only relate to other human-beings in a way that could lead to anger or hatred or inspire violence.
Attacking other humans, causing them pain fighting them etc is akin to sex where as causing pain to animals for the sake of causing pain is akin to rape.
In the first instances the 2 parties are on the same level and there is a certain understanding.
If you're attacking an animal with anger it is one sided, the animal is either stone cold confused or thinks you want to eat it. Its mindset will be pure and innocent and you have this rage that this animal obviously does not understand or have any concept of.
You're satisfying an urge on an unwilling party. It is rape. Hurting or killing an animal other than in a respectfull predator prey interaction(a situation where both parties have an understanding of whats going on, an honest noble event, closer to sex again) is rape.
Someone I am about to boil alive might seem unwilling, but by becoming angry at me he is reciprocating the notion. There is that understanding. We can look at eachother and he can understand that I am murdering him.
Young children don't apply here, because like animals they don't understand the natural politics of the adult homo-sapien.
They should have nothing to do with our anger, they aren't in the game, its like shooting paintballs at someone outside of the skirmish companies property.
I don't think there is anything malicious about adult human conflict. Or more accurately adult human interaction is supposed to be malicious.
Where as human interaction with other species is not, and when it is, it is akin to rape.
I'll get better at explaining this as the thread progresses.

You veggie heads crack me up! :D You are the same people who stomp the shit out of a spider that you find crawling around your homes. I love spiders. I never harm them unless they bite me or something. They at least have a use in our eco-system, killing and eating insects that may be carrying disease. What use do lobsters have other than being food for other animals? I suppose this is useful, but would any animal go extinct if all lobsters vanished from the face of the earth? Doubt it. Furthermore, most world class athletes eat meat. Usually lean red meat, chicken and fish. I think you folks like plants because you can smoke them too! :m: :D

You veggie heads crack me up! :D You are the same people who stomp the shit out of a spider that you find crawling around your homes. ... I think you folks like plants because you can smoke them too! :m: :D

I would just like to do my "straw man argument alert" thing here, not really worth much more of a reply

its impossible to have a "beef" with a bear right? You don't like the way he hibernates???

No, I don't. He's a lazy hairy oaf who needs to get his ass off welfare and go get a god damned job. Maybe then he can start buying up acres of land and protecting the friggin' forest, rather than bitching and crying ever time we cut down some more to build a strip mall. And for gods sake, why doesn’t he stay out of my garbage?

Sorry, Dr. Lou, but a big angry bear killing grin comes over my face every time open season arrives.

Ah, but you replied non the less. You couldn't resist could you? ;)
I'm not very smart, so maybe you could explain this "straw man" thing to me?

Lions should come up with a better way to kill zebras. That whole biting the neck stuff has to be painful. I mean really...predators should always make sure the prey dies as painlessly as possible...right?

I don't think lions and other predatory species exhibit the same self-loathing that some humans apparently do.

I read an article in "Backpacker" magazine that discussed the use of pepper spray as a means of defense in bear country (as opposed to carrying a gun). There were people interviewed who were completely against it. When asked whether they prefer to be mauled to death by a grizzly or prevent said mauling by spraying it in the face with pepper spray, giving it perhaps, 30 minutes of unpleasantness, they would choose death by mauling, because they didn't want to hurt the bear. Insane.

Paradoxically, the same irrational belief that we are not merely animals perpetuates both: a) killing of animals for mere sport or pleasure and b) defense of "animal rights" to the ridiculus degree. Both are dumb.

hi, resident vegan ^. you have to find your own niche.

Or.

You could avoid all of this idiocy and just be a vegetarian.

*bows all around*

Yes, thank you for the applause for the shockingly original, creative, new idea that no one could possibly have thought of. ;)

(kiiiiidding)

people were against pepper spraying bears?? :bugeye:
but you're supposed to keep them afraid of people. i give up. they deserve to be mauled to death.

immane, that is the stupidest argument against veggies i've heard. i sure as hell want a spider killed when it invades my space and starts making it's own house (although i usually leave them alone until they start actively bothering me) but i'm not going to eat it!

stop assuming motives and then pre-emptively bashing them. you need to take a 3 week course on conversation before you rejoin society.

You veggie heads crack me up! You are the same people who stomp the shit out of a spider that you find crawling around your homes.

An interesting point you bring up. Perhaps some of us are a bit hypocritical when it comes to things like these? However, some of us might be vegetarian for completely different reasons. Maybe health? Though I do admit there is a teensy bit of a moral motivation for me.

Let's put a tarantula in your clothing and see if you can refrain from killing it? :D

What use do lobsters have other than being food for other animals? I suppose this is useful, but would any animal go extinct if all lobsters vanished from the face of the earth? Doubt it.

Hahaha. Would any animal go extinct if I slaughtered your family? Doubt it. *wink*

On a more serious note, every extinction has its effect on the ecosystem. Surely that is common sense, and can usually be derived from one's AP Biology material.

Furthermore, most world class athletes eat meat. Usually lean red meat, chicken and fish. I think you folks like plants because you can smoke them too!

Yes, but we're hardly world class athletes, are we? Irrelevant. Most of us aren't aiming that high, and living healthy is probably a reasonable goal for the rest of us mortals. :)

Oh, and meat eaters don't smoke? ;)

Lions should come up with a better way to kill zebras. That whole biting the neck stuff has to be painful. I mean really...predators should always make sure the prey dies as painlessly as possible...right?

Oh come on now, and is everything that lions do right for people to do as well? Forgive me for bringing this up, but lions are not a vallid standard for human morality. Heh, good enough for the cat good enough for FadingCaptain.

first:
yes i am an aussie:p
live in melbourne

second:

who the hell cooks oysters, they die when they are shucked (ie the shell opened)
mussles dont have a brain and you cant really kill them first anyway

third:

a lobster is a large salt water yabbie for aussie or for everyone else a large crustation with claws like an elongated crab

a cray or rock lobster is a different animal. instead of large claws it has long feelers that come out of its head. I also belive that the claw is the bit of the lobster you eat where as a cray its the body

fouthly:

Yabbies are YUMMY, a little muddier than prawns but with a similar flavor

fithly: think of the rights of cellery not to be hurt. The only things on this planet that dont cause harm to eat are plants. There is also the fact that we arnt MENT to be herbivors, nor are we MENT to be carnivors. Our bodys are designed to be OMNIVORIOUS. We are SURPOSED to eat both or we are unhealthy

sixthly: unlike sheep, cattle ect we are HUNTING crays. which means we kill off the stupid ones and leave the intelligent ones to breed. Law of the jungle. This is because of the limits on the fishing of seafood so we dont hurt the animal population, where as all sheep get eaten.

There is also the fact that we arnt MENT to be herbivors, nor are we MENT to be carnivors. Our bodys are designed to be OMNIVORIOUS. We are SURPOSED to eat both or we are unhealthy


Hehe, you listen to ol' Asguard he knows what we're surposa' be now.

Thats right, I can predict the future:cool:


... of internet discussions... still > :cool: