Spiny lobsters are held live in tanks and restaurants worldwide, with welfare concerns around crowding, starvation during holding, and live cooking that raise similar issues to those documented for clawed lobsters.
Spiny lobsters held in overcrowded tanks without food undergo physiological stress and progressive starvation. Social aggregation in nature is distinct from the forced crowding of commercial holding systems where territorial individuals cannot escape competition. Autotomy (self-amputation of limbs) under extreme stress indicates severe welfare distress. Live boiling — the most common method — induces pain responses inconsistent with rapid insensibility. The UK Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act inclusion of decapod crustaceans means spiny lobster welfare now has legal standing in British law.