Five reasons not to eat pawns

1. Prawns are sentient beings who feel pain

Prawn have their own distinct personality. Some are shy, others are bolder, and some are more inquisitive.

Prawns travel in schools for protection against predators. They are known to snap and click to communicate with one another and intimidate other marine life when they feel in danger. 

Prawns, have a nervous system, which means they are capable of experiencing pain and respond to pain. Studies have found that when prawns experience pain, they become disorientated, flick their tails, and rub the affected area for up to five minutes – the exact way a mammal would respond. Professor Robert Elwood said, “the prolonged, specifically directed rubbing and grooming is consistent with an interpretation of pain experience.” Other studies have found that when given morphine, they did not respond to pain stimulus.

2. The industry treats them terribly

Prawns are forced to live in crowded conditions. While stocking densities vary, there can be up to 400,000 individuals per hectare.

Naturally, most prawns are long-distance travellers and the holding ponds deny them this ability. A study with tagged prawns found that a school of prawns can move up to 120 km (pdf) and king prawns up to 1,333 km from their home estuary in their spawning run to the ocean!

Female prawns have a maturity gland behind their eye, which tells their ovaries when they are ready to reproduce. The gland is affected by the environment. Prawn farmers have realised that the stressful farming conditions can make females reluctant to reproduce. Rather than accommodate for this, the prawn industry damages the gland to make the females reproduce sooner. Eyestalk ablation, the process of slicing open, cutting or burning off their eyes, is legal in Australia without pain relief.

A study on eyestalk ablation found that the prawns’ behaviours after the procedures reflected pain, “including tail flicking as a reflex response to allow escape and rubbing the affected area”.

3. Fishing for prawns is bad for the environment

Prawns play a vital role in the ocean’s ecosystem. The little critters remove parasites and dead skin off other animals and are known for saving sea cucumbers and slugs from ectoparasites. They also clean up waterways by consuming algae.

“Bottom trawling” is the method used for catching wild prawns. Large weighted nets are dragged along the ocean floor. As the seafloor is dredged up, it mixes pollutants with plankton, allowing them to enter the food chain. It can also cause algae blooms and lead to the creation of oxygen-deficient dead zones. The nets are also indiscriminate; they scoop up all sea creatures (dolphins, starfish, turtles, sharks, and even coral) in the process. The industry refers to these victims as “by-catch” and often trashes their lifeless bodies. It is estimated that “by-catch” equates to up to 40% of annual catches.

Over-fishing, pollution, drilling, and oil spills, are all major threats to global prawn populations.

4. They are killed in painful ways

A prawns’ death is not peaceful. Once they are removed from the water, they either die from asphyxiation (the equivalent to you drowning), are crushed to death, or freeze when they are dumped on the ice.

In the wild, prawns can live for up to three years (so long as they can escape predators), but in the food system, they are killed at just four to six months old.

5. There are prawn-friendly alternatives

During the festive season, Australians will consume around 45,000 tonnes of prawns, which equates to roughly 900,000,000 individuals. Each one is a sensitive being with a will and strong desire to live.

Be one less person harming animals by choosing a readily available alternative at the supermarket or making your own from mushrooms!

Lamyong: Vegan Prawns (Available at The Vegan Grocery Store and All About Empathy)

Vish: Plant-Based Prawns (Available at The Vegan Grocery Store)

VMAS: Vegan King Prawns (Available at )

Sophie’s Kitchen: Breaded Vegan Prawns (Available at La Vida Vegan)

Sophie’s Kitchen: ‘Naked’ Prawns (Available at La Vida Vegan)

Make your own Vegan Prawns, recipe by Olives for Dinner.