It’s been a ‘crabulous’ week! We have lots of exciting things to update you on.
We started the week by meeting with Defra. Conversations are underway where we are pressing for increased movement on the important issue of legal protection for decapod crustaceans. We will keep you posted as the situation progresses.
On Thursday we attended the RSPCA Honours & Awards event at BAFTA. These awards are given to those who work tirelessly to improve animal welfare, campaign on behalf of animals or show true bravery. We were absolutely thrilled to win the Campaigner Award for our “commitment to obtaining legal protection for decapod crustaceans such as lobsters and crabs”, presented by comedian John Bishop and documentary-maker Patrick Aryee. We felt incredibly humbled to receive such an accolade whilst surrounded by so many remarkable animal welfare advocates. The award will help us to keep this issue on the political agenda, plus reach more people to make them aware of the scientific evidence that these animals can experience pain and should be treated humanely. This wouldn’t have been possible without your fantastic support, so thank you so much for caring about these oft-forgotten animals.
At the event we were delighted to meet Deborah Meaden; animal welfare advocate, entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den investor. She is incredibly supportive of our campaign and has been tweeting her followers to take affirmative action! Huge thanks to Deborah for caring about these animals and for sharing these sentiments with her 314k followers. You can find her on twitter to read what she’s been saying - @DeborahMeaden.
We were also excited that in attendance were actress Evanna Lynch, actor Peter Egan, vlogger Louise Pentland, television personality Pete Wicks and television presenter Storm Huntley. They all support legal protection for crabs and lobsters! Head over to our social media pages to see some photos from the evening (@crab_welfare on twitter, @CrustaceanCompassion on facebook), or our website to see the video that was made about our campaign for the Awards event (https://www.crustaceancompassion.org.uk/campaign-film).
If you haven’t already, then please write to your MP via our Take Action page to ask them to support legal protection for decapods in animal welfare legislation too (https://www.crustaceancompassion.org.uk/take-action). You can also sign our petition here: https://www.change.org/p/michael-gove-mp-protect-crabs-and-lobsters-under-the-animal-welfare-act-england-and-wales-by-crustacean-compassion.
Thank you so much for your continued support and for everything that you do for animals!
Jules, Gemma, Ann, Maisie, Jo and Claire
The Crustacean Compassion Team