Image by Nicholas Demetriades from Pixabay

Have you seen live crabs, lobsters or other shellfish on sale in your local market, often in deplorable conditions and destined to be boiled alive for someone’s dinner? We have too. One of our members drafted the letter below to Thrifty’s and sent it to their local grocery store. We’ve providing the content of their letter and encourage you to use it or to draft something similar to drop off or send to shops or restaurants engaged in such practices.

Dear Manager,

We urge you to end the presence of live crabs and lobsters in your store.

The UK government has declared that lobsters, crabs, octopuses and related species will be included under the new Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill. This paves the way for legal protection from practices like being boiled alive and having the tendons of their pincers cut.

The government ruling is based on a recent report on the likelihood of sentience in cephalopods and decapod crustaceans and came from the London School of Economic.

“Sentience is the ability to have feelings, such as pain, distress, or comfort. Scientific evidence about the complex behaviour and nervous systems of these animals has been accumulating over recent decades, and it has led us to conclude that there is a strong likelihood of these species being sentient.”

“We are really pleased that the government has decided to protect cephalopods and decapods following our report. Nothing will change immediately, but it means that there is now a legal mechanism to allow them to be protected from unnecessary suffering in the future.”

– Dr. Charlotte Burn, a co-author on the report

As a loyal customer, I would be so pleased to see my local Thriftys carry the banner of compassion for our fellow beings. We will still be seeing meat and seafood in your store, but the presence of live beings whose welfare cannot be safeguarded nor their deaths be ensured to be humane is unendurable to a caring customer.