Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has lodged a lawsuit against one of the largest seafood events in the U.S., calling it an "egregious" display of "torture and torment."
Filed July 24 in Knox County Superior Court in Maine, the suit accuses the Maine Lobster Festival and the city of Rockland, where it's been hosted annually for nearly 80 years, of engaging in large-scale animal cruelty. Tens of thousands of visitors flock to the festival, where 20,000 pounds of lobster are served each year, according to the festival website.
The result is a "nuisance to the public," at the center of which is an act of "extreme animal suffering," PETA alleges in its complaint. The suit seeks a permanent injunction prohibiting the steaming of live lobsters on public land.
PETA alleges that the act of boiling 16,000 lobsters alive is a violation of a Maine law that requires sentient animals be killed with methods that result in "instantaneous death." The festival's current practice of chilling the lobsters before steaming them is inadequate to prevent suffering, claims PETA, as it does not render them unconscious but merely inhibits their motor function temporarily.
The complaint also alleges that "scientific consensus" has deemed lobsters sentient and capable of feeling pain and, therefore, the practice of boiling them alive violates state law while also occupying Harbor Park and interfering with the public's right to use the community space.
