PETA Wants Forest Park Bar to Toss Out 'Lobster Zone' Machine

Action Alert on PETA.org Will Ask Supporters to Take Action Against 'Clawing' Device at Doc Ryan's  

For Immediate Release:
February 1, 2010

Contact:
Kristina Addington 757-622-7382

Forest Park, Ill. -- After hearing from bar patrons who were dismayed by a "Lobster Zone" machine at Doc Ryan's pub in Forest Park, PETA wrote to the bar's owner, pointing out that lobsters feel pain and asking him to remove the cruel contraption. After receiving no reply, PETA decided to place an action alert on its Web site today urging readers to politely ask Doc Ryan's to pull the game.

"We hope Doc Ryan's will please everyone by serving up drinks and ditching the nasty 'Lobster Zone' device," says PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews. "Studies show that lobsters are social animals who lead complex lives in the wild. In this economic climate, the decision to get rid of the machine makes good business sense because more and more people are choosing to patronize animal-friendly businesses."

The Lobster Zone is similar to a children's arcade game--only in this version, people pay to swing a mechanical "claw" that grabs at live lobsters. Animals trapped in Lobster Zone machines are not fed and are sometimes injured by the claw. When a customer catches a lobster, the animal is dropped down a chute. PETA's letter to Doc Ryan's cites findings from experts in marine biology and related sciences who have established that lobsters feel pain just as mammals do.

According to Dr. Jaren G. Horsley, an invertebrate zoologist, lobsters have a "sophisticated nervous system" and feel "a great deal of pain" when they are cut or cooked alive. And because lobsters do not enter a state of shock when they are hurt, they feel every moment of their slow, painful deaths when they are cooked in a pot of boiling water. Dr. Nedim C. Buyukmihci, a professor of veterinary surgery, writes, "There is no question that lobsters have the ability to feel pain and suffer. ... [I]t would be inappropriate to do something to lobsters that you would not consider doing to conscious dogs, cats, or humans."

For more information, please visit PETA.org.