PETA Statement: District Attorney Is Wrong Not to Prosecute Maine Fair Trade Lobster

For Immediate Release:
January 12, 2019

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Below, please find a statement from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk after District Attorney Matthew J. Foster declined to file charges against Maine Fair Trade Lobster relating to eyewitness video footage showing fully conscious lobsters being dismembered, even though far less cruel methods are used at other processing plants:

The district attorney is wrong, in that lobsters certainly are equipped to feel pain or they wouldn’t be able to survive—and they experience extreme agony, as any animal would, when their legs are torn off while they’re still alive. It’s primitive to cling to the notion that these animals are somehow exempt from feeling pain when the science indicates otherwise—as does common sense—and we regret that their suffering will continue simply because the prosecutor lacks the resolve to take a crucial new step.

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat.” For more information, please visit PETA.org.