Looks like Professor Elwood has been zapping some more crabs. It’s nice when someone finds their niche in life.
Moderator noting: this is a thread from 2009, until the post above (#61) that revived it. We’re OK with such resurrections, I just want folks to be aware, and not necessarily expect responses from people who may no longer be around (or even remember their 4-years-ago post) --CKDH
Thank you for putting a zombie note at the bottom of the OP. This is the first time I’ve seen such a note and I really appreciate it.
If the pain is there with the boiling, it is over in just as much time as it takes to bisect the head. Maybe 1 second longer with steaming.
I do the knife cut anyway, however.
It is assuredly a quick death, one that even humans would generally say is “painless,” and desirable compared to the crummy ways most of us die. And we’re not lobsters, I might add.
I’ve just discovered this resurrected thread; I do wonder re this particular matter – wouldn’t the tortoises have been better eating, if they’d been fed and kept in OK condition, while on board ship – this from a practical, not a humanitarian, standpoint? Brings to mind a mention in one of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey / Maturin novels, of the heroes’ calling in at some remote island, garrisoned by the British, on which there was a “tortoise-park” (splendidly weird expression, tending to stay in the mind), where hundreds of the creatures were kept for food, for ships that called in. The keeper was an elderly, disabled ex-sailor, for whose sad and isolated lot Aubrey and Maturin felt compassion. IIRC, he was a nice guy who took good care of his charges…
You’re welcome. It’s not going to be a general policy, it would take way too much time and effort, but I will try to do such as I can.
Learning what they eat, bothering to keep some on hand (probably have to keep it fresh too), and bothering to feed the tortoises is probably expecting too much from a culture that had only recently started supplying dietary supplements to the humans on board ships to prevent scurvy.
It was a time period when looking after the welfare of ordinary working-class people was seen as unusual and extraordinary, and a great deal of suffering (both animal and human) that could have been easily prevented with a little attention and effort was seen as “normal.”
Wiki. Not bad.
Given the way they slam violently against the lid before succumbing, I’m thinking yes.
As pointed out upthread, they might be reacting to damaging conditions without feeling pain as we understand it..
Like touching a hot stove. You yank away your hand before the pain registers. Now, are the lobsters getting a “signal” that they’re experiencing damage and that’s it or do they feel pain a split second later like we do?
Since I will consume lobster without the slightest pang of guilt, I find yours an attractive point of view. LOL