Crustacean sentience is now legally recognised in the UK. Improving welfare for farmed and live-traded lobsters and crabs is an urgent policy and industry challenge.
Lobsters and crabs demonstrate nociceptive responses, avoidance learning and physiological stress indicators consistent with sentience. Boiling alive causes behavioural indicators of pain for 60-300 seconds before death. The Crustastun device provides rapid unconsciousness within milliseconds. Splitting along the dorsal midline as practiced in some regions is contested as humane. The legal recognition in the UK creates an obligation to improve slaughter methods. Restaurants and retailers have obligations to adopt humane killing methods for any live crustaceans they handle.