PETA President Leads Protest Against Bean's Lobster Slaughterhouse

PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk has always said that
change comes from the grassroots, and she could be found in the fray this
weekend, reminding diners at Linda Bean’s Freeport, Maine, restaurants to, as
David Foster Wallace put it, “consider the lobster”—and the crabs, too.

Linda Bean’s
Maine Lobster (LBML) slaughterhouse is the site of one of the most egregious
abuses of animals—live dismemberment—that she’s seen in her decades of activism.

In
her book Making Kind Choices, Ingrid
tells the story of the first animal she stopped eating: lobsters. She realized
that, not having vocal cords with which to protest, the lobster she had ordered
broiled (alive) might have been trying to communicate by waving antennae

Armed
with posters and a TV screen, Ingrid and
other activists showed diners and would-be diners PETA’s groundbreaking video footage
of workers at LBML ripping and tearing the legs, heads, and shells off
live lobsters and breaking apart conscious crabs’ shells with sharp
spikes. Once crabs’ shells are broken, their internal organs are violently
scrubbed off with stiff-bristled brushes and they’re slowly lowered into
boiling water—while they’re still alive and completely aware. Lobsters’ claws
and tails are saved—and served to Linda Bean’s patrons—while the rest of their
bodies are dumped into bins and left to writhe in agony.

Help
PETA spread the word about Linda Bean’s indefensible method of killing animals,
which PETA believes violates Maine’s cruelty-to-animals statute. Write to Linda Bean and demand that she switch to a less cruel method of killing the animals whose flesh is
sold to add to her fortune. 

Of
course, the best way that you can save these very misunderstood animals from a
painful death is to stop eating them.