Woman Painted As Lobster Will Protest Outside Asbury Park Restaurant

ASBURY PARK, NJ — PETA, known for their flamboyant and eye-catching protests of animal cruelty, with stage an unusual protest Friday outside Cousins Maine Lobster restaurant in Asbury Park:

A nearly nude, body-painted PETA “lobster” will be dragged screaming toward a giant steaming pot outside Cousins Maine Lobster in Asbury Park this Friday. A fake chef will attempt to put her into a giant lobster pot as she screams.

This should be good.

This is a display from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), urging the restaurant to stop killing lobsters and crabs, particularly under the traditional method of killing lobsters, which is boiling them alive.

"Lobsters feel pain and terror just as humans do," said PETA. Lobsters use complex signals to establish social relationships and, like humans, can recognize other individual lobsters, and can live to be over 100. They also have complex nervous systems and feel intense pain when dismembered or boiled alive, which one researcher described as “torture.”

When called on Thursday, an employee at Cousins said the restaurant had "no idea" the PETA protest would be happening. But she did say she welcomed the rights of all people to protest.

Here is what will happen at noon Friday outside Cousins Lobster restaurant on Ocean Ave.: Beneath a banner proclaiming, “No One Wants to Be Boiled Alive,” a chef will drag the struggling, screaming human “lobster” toward a giant steaming pot and attempt to “boil” her to death.

“No compassionate person would boil an animal alive,” says PETA President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges everyone to consider who is on their plates and please, choose vegan.”

Noon, Friday, outside Cousins Maine Lobster Restaurant, 800 Ocean Avenue North Asbury Park (at the intersection of Ocean Avenue North and Asbury Avenue)