Avowed meat eaters avoid eating lobster because of how they die

The high profile liberation of lobsters from a tank in a Dublin restaurant has attracted considerable media attention.

Deservedly so, because, generally speaking, even the most fervent meat eaters like to think that the creatures killed for their meal are humanely dispatched.

But that can never be said of lobsters.

Captive bolt pistols and other means are used to reduce the suffering of the non humans we eat prior to their ultimate sacrifice. This is denied to lobsters. They are literarily boiled alive... a hell on earth beyond imagining.

I know many people who are committed carnivores but who shun lobster for that reason.

Similarly, a high percentage of Irish people (according to opinion polls) abhor hare coursing.

They might dine on jugged hare... they may savour the flesh of that gentlest of creatures as part of some self indulgent gourmet dish, but they take a different view of setting up a hare to be terrorised or mauled or crushed to death by competing greyhounds.

If we can’t eliminate the systematic exploitation of our fellow beings on this planet, surely we can at least make an effort to stop subjecting them to unnecessary and agonising torment.

What have animals ever done to us to deserve the horrors we inflict on them?

John Fitzgerald

Lower Coyne Street

Callan

Co Kilkenny