Welfare protection is more easily understood when applied to mammals and birds. These are animals very familiar to us, and empathising with them is far simpler for humans than when we are faced with decapod crustaceans, such as shrimps, crabs, lobsters, crayfish and prawns. Yet they too have been declared sentient beings and need protection to suffer as little as possible during their handling within the fishing industry and the food industry.
Crustaceans are sentient beings
Decapod crustaceans are sentient beings. But what does this mean?
«Sentience is the capacity to have feelings, such as pain, pleasure, hunger, thirst, warmth, joy, comfort and excitement. It is not simply the capacity to feel pain, but feelings of pain, distress or other negative feelings, in a broad sense, and this has special significance for animal welfare legislation».
This is the definition given in the report Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans, commissioned by the UK government and produced by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method and leader of the Foundations of Animal Sentience project at the LSE, and his colleagues developed a set of criteria to assess the evidence of sentience in decapod crustaceans (crustaceans that possess ten legs) and cephalopods (such as octopuses and cuttlefish), analysing more than 300 scientific publications. Through this work they were subsequently able to derive the potential welfare implications of current commercial practices for these animals.
Problems in the crustacean trade: from capture and farming…
The stages that crustaceans go through before reaching restaurant tables and home kitchen plates are capture or farming, transport, storage and slaughter. Each of these phases, in light of the conclusions set out in the London School of Economics document, presents issues related to the welfare protection of these animals.
During capture, accidental injuries can occur, such as damage to the carapace or antennae, or loss of limbs. There are also practices adopted by operators in the sector that have been shown to be painful, such as declawing, i.e. the removal of one or both claws before returning the animal to the water, and nicking, the cutting of the tendons in the claws.
A widespread practice in shrimp farms around the world that is harmful to their welfare is eyestalk ablation, which involves severing the stalks on which the eyes are positioned, or directly crushing the eyes of female specimens, in order to accelerate their reproduction.
…to transport, storage and killing
According to the report by the London School of Economics and Political Science, with regard to transport and storage, during these phases crustaceans should have access to areas sheltered from light at temperatures that, in wet storage, must not exceed 8°C and must not fall below 3–4°C. It becomes clear that, as already highlighted on other occasions, crustaceans should not be kept on ice, whose temperature is 0°C or lower. Furthermore, as in farming, the number of individuals within a given space must be reduced to prevent stress and aggression, as well as injuries, infections or hypoxia (oxygen deficiency). Finally, there is the slaughter phase, in which the animal is killed. The methods that cause suffering in crustaceans are boiling alive — it takes an average of 35 to 45 seconds for a lobster to die after being placed in boiling water — and immersion in fresh water for marine crustaceans. There is also live dismemberment, which involves, for example, separating the abdomen from the thorax or the head from the thorax: consider how often this may have happened to those who buy from a fishmonger and prepare crustaceans at home without knowing the appropriate killing procedures. To date, the killing methods that cause the least suffering to crustaceans are spiking for crabs, which requires the destruction of the animal’s two nerve centres, and splitting in lobsters, i.e. dividing the specimen in half. Finally, there is electrocution — a stunning method that most effectively reduces suffering in crustaceans —, the passing of electric current using controlled devices and methods, prior to killing.
Currently in Italy there is no adequate and uniform legislation protecting decapod crustaceans based on scientific evidence. It is for this reason that in the coming months we at Animal Law Italia will be carrying out research, outreach and advocacy activities, involving researchers, producers, distributors, fish product retailers and restaurants, and collaborating with stakeholders and the scientific community to improve their welfare, bringing this topic into the public and political debate. To find out more, keep following us.