PETA vs The Lobster Zone

Strangely enough, this has nothing to do with my previous article about PETA and Lobsters. A new "monster" has appeared before PETA and has once again yielded outrage from the organization. What demonic insult to animalkind is PETA rallying against this time?

Imagine putting money in a carnival claw game, except instead of a chance to win a fuzzy stuffed animal, it was a chance to win a delicious live lobster that would be cooked up for you if you won.

Congratulations, you're now thinking of "The Lobster Zone" - a game that actually exists in many fisheries and sports bars and restaurants and the machines are actually manufactured by a domestic company.

PETA is obviously not pleased. And yet, I think they should at least consider it better than the alternative.

"JD's Lobster Zone machine turns torture and death into a game, pure and simple," says PETA vice president Tracy Reiman. "Incarcerating lobsters in filthy tanks inside a boisterous club, making an abusive game out of their capture, and finally boiling them to death is every bit as reprehensible as tormenting cats, dogs, or any other animal."

PETA didn't even know that this one sports bar's machine was actually one of many machines that have been produced by The Lobster Zone and are available in more than 300 locations nationwide.

First off, I'd like to point out that dogs and cats aren't currently being bred/caught for eating here in the USA, despite my arguments that they might as well be. You can't compare lobsters with cats and dogs because we aren't eating cats and dogs. Also, cats and dogs have brains capable of feeling pain, and science can't even prove or disprove the same thing about lobsters.

Secondly, I have absolutely no clue why PETA is against this. Okay, I have SOME clue (mostly their gratuitous usage of the word "torture"). But when you think about it, isn't this game literally giving the lobsters a second chance?? I mean, they already had one shot at not being boiled alive - and they screwed it up by walking right into a lobster trap. At this point, we'd normally say "game over" and they get put into a tank, and patrons of the restaurant could point at one and say "feed me THAT one" and out it goes into the boiling water and served with a garlic butter sauce.

Now, we've given lobsters a second chance. A patron can point a claw at the lobster and say "feed me THAT one", but unless they're lucky or skilled, the lobster can get away! True, there's no REAL escape since they're trapped in a tank, but isn't giving them a chance to NOT be killed and eaten a step in the right direction? If this expanded, and every time you wanted a hamburger from McDonald's, you had to slip some coin in a machine and try and grab your cow with a backhoe-type claw contraption, wouldn't that mean less cow death?

I don't understand why PETA is so adamantly against this machine - their own logic should at least count this as progress in their favor.

The machine itself was developed with the help of a marine biologist and have been around for more than a decade. A competitor lobster-game-machine company (because The Lobster Zone doesn't hold a monopoly) even boasts that its machines can net $10,000 a year to a company. Of course, the machines themselves cost $15,950 - and I'm guessing it doesn't come with lobsters - but that's still an eventual profit.

The Lobster Zone's owner, Ernie Pappas, said that his games don't generate many complaints. "If a restaurant does 8,000 (customers) a week, we might get one person every other week who complains."

PETA's website, LobsterLib 'surprisingly' argues that since there's no humane way to kill lobsters (even though it's not scientifically agreed upon that they even feel pain) - they shouldn't be eaten. Oh, and also we should all be vegetarians as well. Too bad nobody told that to the lobsters; a lobster's favorite food is lobster.

The best part of this story is that despite PETA's letter and campaigning, the sports bar's owner still has his game up and running and we will probably keep it.

"I just hate like hell for somebody to tell me how to run my business," he said.

Denver restaurant consultant and vegetarian John Imbergamo said he doubts any controversy that PETA generates will turn people away from J.D.'s Bait Shop.

"It's not exactly a place that's sprout- and tofu-friendly," he said.

If anything, the kind of people who would be curious about this game might hear the publicity and go there, Imbergamo said.

Do you hear that, PETA? Humans are not yours to push around, and when you start spewing your propaganda and telling business owners what they should do, you make more enemies than friends and they will push even harder just to spite you.

You could have at least tried to claim a small victory in that lobsters could defend themselves from being boiled alive and eaten by escaping the crane - but instead you chose to stumble over your own two feet. Not only do you look like idiots (bigger ones than you were before this incident), you're rooted the owner further into disobeying your orders and probably given him and his bar and the game itself more publicity.

And after all, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Frankly, there's an even better argument against PETA's chastizing of these games. True, if a bar patron played and won, they could eat the lobster. But I'm willing to bet that if a PETA member played and won, they'd let the PETA member take the lobster with them and the lobster could be saved! PETA - they just gave you a chance to save the lobsters, on TOP of a chance for the lobsters to save themselves! Go grab your quarters and get to rescuin'!

(The Denver Post article)

(PETA's tirade and letter to the bar owner)