dryingup.FromthecommunitiesonIreland’swestcoastto
theBurmese and Malayanfishing villages the storyis the
same. The fishing industry of the developed nations has
becomeonemoreformofredistributionfromthepoortothe
rich.
Sooutofconcernforbothfishandhumanbeingsweshould
avoideating fish.Certainly thosewhocontinue to eat fish
whilerefusingtoeatotheranimalshavetakena majorstep
awayfromspeciesism;butthosewhoeatneitherhavegone
one step further.
Whenwegobeyondfishto theotherformsofmarine life
commonlyeaten byhumans,we canno longerbe quiteso
confident about the existence of a capacity for pain.
Crustacea—lobster, crabs, prawns, shrimps—have nervous
systems very different
fromourown.Nevertheless,Dr.JohnBaker,azoologistat
theUniversityofOxfordandafellowoftheRoyalSociety,
hasstatedthattheirsensoryorgansarehighlydeveloped,their
nervoussystemscomplex,theirnervecellsverysimilartoour
own,and theirresponses to certain stimuli immediateand
vigorous. Dr. Baker therefore believes that lobster, for
example, canfeel pain. He is also clear that the standard
method of killing lobster—dropping them into boiling
water—can cause pain for as long as two minutes. He
experimentedwithothermethodssometimessaidtobemore
humane,suchasputtingthemincoldwaterandheatingthem
slowly, orleaving themin fresh wateruntil theycease to
move,but found thatboth ofthese ledto moreprolonged
struggling and, apparently, suffering.^25 If crustacea can
suffer,theremustbeagreatdealofsuffering involved,not
onlyinthemethodbywhichtheyarekilled,butalsointhe