First donkey rights now lobsters'

August 23, 2022 6:30 AM

We just missed the 200th anniversary of passing the Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822 in the UK; sponsored by Richard “Humanity Dick” Martin MP for Galway. It’s still celebrated locally as Martin’s Day on 22nd July. The first prosecution was later that year when costermonger Bill Burns was convicted of wanton cruelty to his donkey: prosecuting attorney, Richard Martin MP. The RSPCA was founded two years later. That's the donkeys, for lobsters . . .

The most recent chapter in 2 centuries of animal welfare legislation is The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 which extends "sentient beings" from just vertebrates to include decapod crustaceans = crab and lobster and cephalopod molluscs = squid and octopus. This Act requires the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs DEFRA (Currently George Eustice MP) to establish a committee to review future government policy and legislation to take into account the welfare of (sentient) animals. It has no impact on existing legislation. This development is on foot of a study by the London School of Economics to investigate the evidence for sentience in animals [100 page 4Mb PDF].

tl;dr News: gives its soundbyte on the 2022 Act, noting that the transcript of their vid is longer
than the Act.
MetaPrev on octopus sentience -- lobster sentience

posted by BobTheScientist (9 comments total)

Enough about human rights!
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 8:20 AM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

Think about how crazily people behave in cars. Then throw animals into the mix.
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:27 AM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Donkeys and mules are, for the most part, hardworking and personable creatures. Don’t beat them or treat them wantonly! Give them a carrot or something!
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:01 PM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Lobsters, on the other hand, are murder machines with unsettling sex lives.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:02 PM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Let me know when we can eat humans... i've got a list...
posted by The otter lady at 4:07 PM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Donkeys and mules are, for the most part, hardworking and personable creatures. Don’t beat them or treat them wantonly! Give them a carrot or something!

While true, neither is (AFAIK) cattle, so I have no choice to see this prosecution as a case of gross governmental overreach. Sure, now Humanity Dick's only extending the definition to include equines, but what's next, human children? My coal mines can't take much more of this interference by the nanny state!

(Why no, I haven't read the text of the bill. Why do you ask?)
posted by the tartare yolk at 4:36 PM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Animals being injured increasingly makes me really, really uncomfortable and upset. I can handle it in a movie or tv show or whatever, but in real life or on a nature documentary I just can’t deal with it.

The idea that animals have broad capacity of understanding and intelligence seems so obviously true, which is why this law was ultimately passed (paving the way for better though very imperfect laws today).

Thank you for posting. This was great. Bonus points for the image of a man doing a raspberry in a courtroom and me wishing we did that today instead of just being angry.
posted by glaucon at 7:26 PM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

(Why no, I haven't read the text of the bill. Why do you ask?)

Ahem.

Whereas it is expedient to prevent the cruel and improper Treatment of Horses, Mares, Geldings, Mules, Asses, Cows, Heifers, Steers, Oxen, Sheep, and other Cattle:

Checking the OED, “cattle” was used as late as the 19th C to refer to swine, horses, and even geese, although majority usage was pushing it toward the Bos taurus and related species pretty hard.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:02 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

I only recently realised that, in practical usage, “cattle” is a single-species term referring to cows and bulls, rather than “domesticated animals that are not pets” or something. It was surprising, because until then, I had thought it was a catch-all of sorts, and there was no single-species unisex term encompassing cows and bulls.
posted by acb at 4:12 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]