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Switzerland Bans Lobster Boiling Without Stunning or Killing Them

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:51AM   
from the lobster-prod dept.

takyon writes:

You can no longer boil a lobster alive in Switzerland, unless you stun it first:

The Swiss government has ordered an end to the common culinary practice of throwing lobsters into boiling water while they are still alive, ruling that they must be knocked out before they are killed.

As part of a wider overhaul of Swiss animal protection laws, Bern said that as of 1 March, "the practice of plunging live lobsters into boiling water, which is common in restaurants, is no longer permitted". Lobsters "will now have to be stunned before they are put to death," the government order read.

According to Swiss public broadcaster RTS, only electric shock or the "mechanical destruction" of the lobster's brain will be accepted methods of stunning the animals once the new rule takes affect.

Also at BBC.

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Original Submission

• Re:s/Philosophy/Empathy/ Required (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday January 14 2018, @10:35PM

  by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Sunday January 14 2018, @10:35PM (#622300)

  On the other hand, you use words like "suffer" here for animals. Is there not some sort of personification happening here? You speak of "empathizing" with animals. Do we have any idea what it is like to be an animal, to "feel" as an animal does? You mention the ability of humans to have conscious reasoning, but the assumption is usually that animals do not have the same sort of conscious self-awareness, or at least at a much more limited level (particularly for something like a lobster).

  I'm an animal, and I suffer from pain. I assume that suffering is as much an evolutionary response to pain as a reflex from a doctor hitting my knee with a hammer.

  Parent

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