It’s difficult to estimate the number of decapods caught and farmed every year. Around 30 to 40 thousand tons of decapods are caught in Europe each year, in trawl nets and traps.

Meanwhile, annual imports of shrimp into the EU approach half a million tons. Commercially available stunning equipment isn’t widely adopted. Farmed crustaceans face all of the challenges associated with intensive agricultural production. Wild crustaceans may have their claws removed alive, or suffer being packed alive out of water for long road journeys.

The most obvious cause of cruel treatment is inhumane slaughter methods. Decapod crustaceans are not protected by slaughter regulations, and are routinely subjected to unnecessary suffering due to inhumane slaughter methods which would be considered completely unacceptable in a vertebrate animal. Decapod crustaceans are typically asphyxiated, and in some cases are routinely boiled alive as a method of slaughter. Whilst being boiled alive, lobsters and crabs often thrash, try to escape, and shed their limbs (a known sign of stress).

Common transport practices expose decapod crustaceans to multiple stressors, including but not limited to inappropriate and/or fluctuating temperatures and water quality, unsuitable packaging/containment, overcrowding, stacking, air exposure, vibration, noise, light,  manual handling, and confinement in close proximity to others of the same or sometimes different species. As a result, the animals experience many physical (e.g. injuries), physiological (e.g. production of the stress hormone, crustacean hyperglycaemic hormone), immunological (e.g disease or infection) and behavioural (e.g aggression) disturbances. This inevitably causes suffering and results in high levels of morbidity and mortality both in transit, and during recovery at the destination.