Animal rights organization PETA is accusing a top seafood plant in Maine of killing lobsters and crabs in a painful method, violating the state's cruelty-to-animals statute.
PETA says this video was shot by an undercover investigator at Linda Bean's Maine Lobster plant in Rockland. It shows lobsters and crabs being dismembered and disposed of while they're still alive.
PETA released the tape Tuesday, and now it says its looking to file a complaint against the company with local police for what it believes is a violation of Maine's animal cruelty laws.
According to CBS: "The animal rights group says the company should be using readily available technology that electrically stuns the animals or subjects them to hydrostatic pressure before they're dismembered. Both methods kill the crustaceans almost instantaneously."
Maine law criminalizes the intentional killing of animals by any method that does not cause instantaneous death, and there is no part of the statute that exempts lobsters and crabs from the list of protected animals. (Via Maine Legislation)
The owner of the accused plant, Linda Bean, was called "one of the major players in the state's lobster industry" in an article published earlier this year by the Bangor Daily News. She has yet to comment on the video, but according to the Kennebec Journal the attorney who represents Bean says he or she can't comment " … because nothing in the video identifies where it was shot." (Via Kennebec Journal)
PETA plans to hold a press conference Tuesday afternoon to show the video and answer questions about the group's investigation.
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