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17 July 2009 8:00 AM
Reconsider the Crab
In March of this year, a scientific team in the UK released a report indicating, through the use of some novel experiments, that crabs may well feel pain. The study overturned decades of claims that crustaceans can't feel much at all, and garnered worldwide attention. Now, in this week's edition of New Scientist, a researcher in the UK named Peter Fraser, who uses crabs in his experiments, has fought back, writing that crabs feeling pain is about as likely as crabs being able to enjoy a good opera.
So the debate continues, except that, astonishingly, Mr. Fraser may turn out to be on the wrong side. I wouldn't be surprised if there are chefs out there who play opera for their lobsters to ease their final moments. And I can tell you for certain that there is a small army of animal-rights activists in Europe lobbying for new laws for crabs, lobsters, crayfish, and other invertebrates. The idea is to give these charming underwater bugs the same legal protections against cruelty already afforded to pigs, cows, and other mammals. Which, for starters, would mean not boiling them alive.
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