Do Lobsters Feel Pain?

The traditional method for cooking a lobster (龙虾) — boiling it alive — raises the question of whether or not lobsters feel pain. 【小题1】. Lobsters go bad very quickly after they die, and eating a dead lobster increases the risk of illness and reduces the quality of its flavor. However, if lobsters are capable of feeling pain, the method and others, such as storing the live lobster on ice, raise moral questions for chefs and lobster eaters alike.

【小题2】. Lobsters have a peripheral system like humans, but instead of a single brain, they possess nerve cluster (神经簇). Because of this difference, some researchers argue lobsters are too dissimilar to vertebrates (脊椎动物) to feel pain. Nonetheless, lobsters do satisfy all of the standard for a pain response. Lobsters guard their injuries, learn to avoid dangerous situations, respond to anesthetics, and are believed to possess some level of consciousness. So most scientists believe that injuring a lobster causes physical pain.

【小题3】, so it is now becoming illegal to boil lobsters alive or keep them on ice. Currently, boiling lobsters alive is illegal in Switzerland, New Zealand, and the Italian city Reggio Emilia.

The most humane tool for cooking a lobster is the CrustaStun. This device electrocutes a lobster, making it unconscious in less than half a second or killing it in 5 to 10 seconds. 【小题4】.

Unfortunately, the CrustaStun is too expensive for most restaurants and people to afford. Some restaurants place a lobster in a plastic bag and place it in the freezer for a couple of hours, during which time it loses consciousness and dies. 【小题5】, but it is probably the most humane option for killing a lobster before cooking and eating it.

The largest living land animal in Asia, Asian elephants once roamed grasslands and rainforests across the continent. Prior to the 1700s, habitats for the now-endangered animals were relatively stable (稳定的). But a new study shows that more than 64% of historic suitable elephant habitat across Asia has been lost.

Researchers found there was a rapid growth in habitat loss of Asian elephants from the year 1700, which is related to the expansion of European colonization (殖民化) of the region. During that time, logging, road-building, resource extraction and deforestation (森林砍伐) increased, and farming need more land that might otherwise have been home to wildlife. The industrial revolution in the middle of the last century also drove greater habitat loss.

Habitat loss means elephants are migrating (迁徙) from their usual living area, creating challenges for human communities that have little experience with elephants. In 2021, millions of people were frightened by a herd of elephants that migrated out of a protected area in China’s southwest Yunnan Province and walked more than 500 kilometers, destroying crops, wandering through towns and causing more than a million dollars’ worth of damage.

With the elephants not having enough habitat, there is increased potential for human-elephant conflict (冲突) — a situation that shouldn’t be accepted as unavoidable and one that can be avoided with proper planning. “We are going to reach a tipping point in which cultures of no conflict toward one another get replaced by cultures of antagonism ( 敌 对) and violence — by both species. We have to relieve this situation,” said Shermin de Silva, a UCSD faculty member who led the research team.

If the elephants can’t find suitable habitats, they will become endangered and near extinction (灭绝), which has an effect on the whole ecosystem. This is because elephants help spread seeds and vegetation cover (植被). Their habitats also include several other species of animals and plants. In the wake of satisfying their need for large spaces, and enough water and food, plenty of other species can survive. When we protect the elephant, we also protect thousands of other species.