Is it wrong to boil lobsters alive?

It would be unthinkable to buy a chicken or lamb to kill at home - but you can have living crustaceans delivered to your door via Amazon. Has society gone to pot over shellfish?

Robert Elwood once boiled a lobster alive - lobsters being one of the few creatures we eat that we are allowed to slaughter at home. It is the usual way to kill, and cook, them. "Would I boil a lobster now?" asks Elwood, emeritus professor at the school of biological sciences at Queen's University Belfast, referring to the work he has done for more than a decade on crustaceans and pain. "I wouldn't. I would kill it before boiling."

The question of whether lobsters feel pain - and the way people should (or should not) treat them - has been raised again recently. Last week, a London-based company had to defend the sale through Amazon of live lobsters, which are confined in packaging and posted to consumers. Other fishmongers in the UK, not on Amazon, also courier live lobsters to people at home. Last month, Switzerland banned the practice of boiling lobsters alive, which is already illegal in New Zealand. From 1 March, as part of an overhaul of animal protection legislation, the animals must be stunned electrically before cooking.