After signing the petition, please contact Meijer and Spartan Stores directly asking them to stop selling live lobster:
Spartan Stores
Customer Service: consumer@spartanstores.com
CEO: dennis_eidson@spartanstores.com
Meijer
Customer Service: Shopformore@meijer.com
CEO: mark.murray@meijer.com
Lobsters are very sophisticated. They form social relationships. They travel up to 100 miles per year, if they can manage not to be caught in traps along the coasts.
Studies show that crustaceans feel pain. A study of the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s University shows that they not only feel pain, but they remember it [Journal of Animal Behavior]. The study says crustaceans have “a suitable central nervous system and receptors”. Plus, a new study was just released January 2013 showing lobsters feel pain (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2263712/Lobsters-crabs-feel-pain-action-avoid-happening-again.html).
When dropped into a pot of boiling water, lobsters whip their bodies around and claw at the pot in a desperate attempt to escape the torture. According to invertebrate zoologist Dr. Jaren G. Horsley, "The lobster does not have an autonomic nervous system that puts it into a state of shock when it is harmed. It probably feels itself being cut. ... I think the lobster is in a great deal of pain from being cut open ... [and] feels all the pain until its nervous system is destroyed" during cooking.
Lobsters suffer greatly in the tanks at grocery stores too. They suffer from stress from confinement, low oxygen levels, and crowded conditions.
