People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is suing the city of Rockland and the Maine Lobster Festival to stop the steaming deaths of an estimated 20,000 live lobsters at the annual event next week.
In a complaint filed in Knox County Superior Court, Thursday, the animal rights advocacy group accused festival organizers and the city of violating Maine’s animal protection statutes on public land, the Portland Press Herald reported.
The complaint cited science that shows lobsters feel pain, according to the Press Herald. An article on the organization’s website suggests that they may even feel more pain than humans would if boiled alive.
The Maine Lobster Festival is scheduled to run from July 30 through Aug. 3.
PETA, which is known for eye-catching campaigns on behalf of animals, has protested the Maine Lobster Festival multiple times before. The organization proposed erecting a tombstone in Brunswick where a seafood truck carrying lobsters crashed in 2018, bought ad space at the Portland International Jetport the same year to promote veganism, and proposed replacing Portland’s Maine Lobsterman statue with a lobster with a defiantly raised claw crushing a trap in 2022.