A Landmark Victory for Crustaceans and a Blueprint for Legal Interpretation

Edie Bowles, Executive Director, The Animal Law Foundation

In a major victory for animal protection in the UK, The Animal Law Foundation has helped secure an end to the practice of boiling lobsters and crabs alive. After years of legal argument, engagement, and pressure, the UK government has now accepted that this practice is illegal under existing law.

This outcome is not only a breakthrough for crustaceans. It is a powerful demonstration of what can be achieved when animal protection law is interpreted properly and of how much more protection animals could receive if existing legislation were applied as Parliament intended.

How the boiling-alive ban came about

For many years, boiling lobsters and crabs alive was treated as a normal and acceptable practice in the food industry. That acceptance was based not on the law itself, but on a long-standing failure to apply it correctly.

The legal landscape shifted decisively in 2022, when decapod crustaceans, including lobsters and crabs, were officially recognised as sentient beings under the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act. This recognition followed years of campaigning from groups like Crustacean Compassion and confirmed what science had already shown: these animals are capable of experiencing pain, distress and suffering.

Despite this, the government initially maintained that recognition of sentience would not change industry practices, which would include the boiling of these animals while fully conscious. In 2022, The Animal Law Foundation was founded to challenge precisely that position and other examples where we argue the law has been misapplied.

Our argument was simple, but legally robust. The Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing Regulations 2015 already prohibits killing animals (including invertebrates) in a way that causes avoidable pain, distress or suffering. Once decapod crustaceans were formally recognised as sentient, it became impossible to argue that these animals did not experience pain while being boiled alive. The pain caused is also avoidable, when more humane killing methods are readily available. In other words, boiling lobsters alive was not simply unethical, it was already unlawful. The law had simply not been enforced as it should have been.

Over the following years, The Animal Law Foundation pursued this argument relentlessly. We made repeated legal interventions, engaged directly with government departments, and secured widespread media coverage.

The decisive turning point came when we approached local authorities, the bodies legally responsible for enforcing the law, with our legal analysis. Many of them recognised that the argument was sound and sought guidance from the central government on how the law should be applied. One local authority went further still, opening a criminal investigation after we provided evidence of a lobster being crushed alive.

At that point, the government could no longer dispute the accuracy of our interpretation. It accepted that boiling lobsters and crabs alive is incompatible with animal welfare law in its Animal Welfare Strategy, where it committed to ‘publish guidance on which methods of killing decapods are compatible with the existing welfare at time of killing legal requirements, including by clarifying that live boiling is not an acceptable killing method.’

Why this victory matters beyond crustaceans

This success matters because it exposes a crucial truth about animal protection law: common practice is not the same as lawful practice.

The law already contains some meaningful protections for animals, but too often those protections are weakened by permissive interpretations that prioritise tradition, convenience or profit over welfare. The crustacean case shows that when the law is read properly, real change can happen without waiting years for new legislation.

Putting animals back into the Animal Welfare Act

The boiling-alive victory also points directly to the next challenge: fixing the gaps and inconsistencies in the Animal Welfare Act 2006 itself.

2026 marks the Act’s 20th anniversary, The Animal Law Foundation and a coalition of animal protection organisations have called on the government to ‘put animals back into the Animal Welfare Act’. While the Act was a landmark achievement, experience has shown that its potential has not been fully realised. Too many animals remain inadequately protected because of overly loose interpretations of ‘unnecessary suffering’, inconsistent enforcement of welfare needs, and the outright exclusion of entire categories of animals, including many wild animals and invertebrates. This work complements the implementation of the government’s Animal Welfare Strategy that will rely on many of the key principles in the Act to achieve its objectives.

The crustacean victory shows what is possible when these weaknesses are addressed. It proves that suffering itself, not tradition or industry norms, must be the trigger for legal protection.

A blueprint for future progress

Ending the practice of boiling lobsters alive is a milestone in its own right. But it is also something more: a blueprint. It demonstrates that animals do not have to wait decades for protection they are already legally entitled to receive. By insisting on accurate interpretation, accountability and enforcement, existing animal welfare law can be made to work for all animals.

As we continue our work to strengthen and properly apply the Animal Welfare Act, this victory stands as a clear reminder: progress is possible, and the law may already be on the animals’ side, if we choose to use it.