Crustacean Compassion is a nonprofit organization that campaigns for the humane treatment of crabs, lobsters and other decapod crustaceans in the United Kingdom.

Activities

Crustacean Compassion's activities so far have focused on organizing a public petition to include crustaceans as a class of animals protected by the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill (Crustacean Compassion 2021a); releasing a report outlining the ethical, legal and scientific arguments for the protection of crustaceans (Crustacean Compassion 2021b); and drafting an open letter to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, signed by over fifty animal welfare scientists and other relevant experts, asserting the sentience of crustaceans and calling for their protection (Crustacean Compassion 2018).

In November 2021, following the publication of a report by the London School of Economics on decapod and cephalopod sentience (Birch et al. 2021), the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill was amended to recognize crabs, octopuses and lobsters as sentient beings (Crustacean Compassion 2021c; Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs 2021).

Evaluation

Crustacean Compassion was the recipient of a $10,000 pilot grant by Animal Welfare Fund (Animal Welfare Fund 2019) and, more recently, of a £575,000 grant by Open Philanthropy to support work to advance UK welfare reforms for decapod crustaceans (Bollard & Hungerford 2021).